ChkNet On-line Network Device Monitor

v0.1.0

Contents

Introduction

Project Overview

The ICT Support Team Experience

Technical Overview

Database

PHP

Apache

Additional Software

Additional Listings

Introduction

ChkNet is an On-line Network Device Monitor, part of the School Tools for Online Resource Management project.

The name is simply a shortened version of “Check Network” and is designed to be recognisable and memorable.

Project Overview

The ChkNet project uses a web interface to allow ICT Support Team members to check the connectivity of network devices by hostname or IP address from any PC.

ChkNet produces a visual overview of devices on the network, allowing easy identification of devices or network segments that have lost connectivity. The status page refreshes itself after a predetermined interval when a browser supporting the Meta Refresh tag is used.

Normal ChkNet users do not have access to this module.

The ICT Support Team Experience

The ChkNet project should provide the following facilities to the members of the ICT Support Team:

Allow only authenticated access.

Allow ICT Support Team member to view the connectivity status of network devices.

Automatically refresh after a defined period to ensure up-to-date status information is reported.

Display groups of devices together to give a clear overview of the various devices on the network.

Authentication

Access to the ChkNet module is granted following a successful login to the “login” module.

ChkNet Start Page

Following authentication the ICT Support Team member should be presented with an overview of the devices that the ChkNet module has been configured to monitor. Devices which repsond to connectivity checks should be displayed in one colour, those which fail, another.

Devices are displayed by group and the order of groups can be controlled by the ChkNet administrator.

Information On How To Use ChkNet

Instructions for use of the functions available to the ICT Support Team should be available through the ChkNet pages.

Technical Overview

Database

The key to the successful development and use of the ChkNet system is the structure of the underlying database.

Database Name: STORM

Table: chknet_dev

Object: device

Primary Key: id

Attribute	Data Type	Default Values	Required Field?	Description
id	INT(3)	Auto-increment	Yes	Unique Device ID
name	VARCHAR(20)		Yes	Device name
hostname	VARCHAR(30)		Yes	Hostname or IP address of device
grp	INT(3)		Yes	ID of group to which device belongs
active	INT(1)		Yes	Determines if device should be monitored

chknet_dev table permissions

The account structure should take into account the following:

The ChkNet administrator needs to be able to: DELETE, INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE. Default account name: admin

The ICT Support Team members need to be able to:

SELECT

Default account name: ict

Users do not need access to the table

Database Name: STORM

Table: chknet_grp

Object: group

Primary Key: id

Attribute	Data Type	Default Values	Required Field?	Description
id	INT(3)	Auto-increment	Yes	Unique Group ID
name	VARCHAR(20)		Yes	Group name
ordr	INT(3)		Yes	Order for group selection

chknet_grp table permissions

The account structure should take into account the following:

The SATYR administrator needs to be able to: DELETE, INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE.

The ICT Support Team members need to be able to:

SELECT

Users do not need to access this table.

Database Name: STORM

Table: chknet_settings

Object: setting

Primary Key: function

Attribute	Data Type	Default Values	Required Field?	Description
function	CHAR(30)	Auto-increment	Yes	Function name
value	CHAR(30)		Yes	Function value

chknet_settings table permissions

The account structure should take into account the following:

The SATYR administrator needs to be able to: SELECT, UPDATE.

The ICT Support Team members need to be able to:

SELECT

Users do not need to access this table.

The Function/Value pairs that should be present in the table are:

Function	Default Value
pingpath	/usr/bin/fping
pingoptions	-qa
refresh	60
failcolour	#FF0000
okcolour	#33FF33
pingtype	unixfping

PHP

Common Processes and Page Elements

PHP processes and page elements that recurr across pages should be coded in separate "include" files or functions to allow changes to be made to a single file but reflected across the whole SATYR site.

Additional Software

The ChkNet module relies on an external program to check the connectivity of devices entered in the database. This can be a standard “ping” program, but the program “fping” is highly recommended. (http://www.fping.com) This program is capable to pinging multiple devices at once and therefore speeds up the generation of the page. Using a standard “ping” command, only a single device can be checked at once and each non-responding device adds approximately 10 seconds to the page loading time. When using fping, the whole page will only take about 10 seconds to load, regardless of how many non-responding devices there are on the network.

Laura Cowen

1995-11-21T17:41:00