Fibre Channel Details Test

How often should the test be executed

The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.

The port at which the monitored target exposes its SNMP MIB; the default is 161.

By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPversion list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list.

The SNMP community name that the test uses to communicate with the firewall. This parameter is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVersion chosen is v3, then this parameter will not appear.

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges – in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against this parameter. 

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVERSION. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the Username provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the Username in the Context text box.  By default, this parameter is set to none.

Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned Username. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPversion selected is v3.

Confirm the AuthPass by retyping it here.

This parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. From the AuthType list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified username and password into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:

• MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm
• SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm
• SHA224 - Secure Hash Algorithm 224 bit
• SHA256 - Secure Hash Algorithm 256 bit
• SHA384 - Secure Hash Algorithm 384 bit
• SHA512 - Secure Hash Algorithm 512 bit

This flag appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the this flag is set to No by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the Yes option. 

If the EncryptFlag is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the EncryptType list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:

• DES - Data Encryption Standard
• 3DES - Triple Data Encryption Standard
• AES - Advanced Encryption Standard
• AES128 - Advanced Encryption Standard 128 bit
• AES192 - Advanced Encryption Standard 192 bit
• AES256 - Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit

Specify the encryption password here.

Confirm the encryption password by retyping it here.

This test reports a measure named Operational status, which indicates the current operational state of every fibre channel port. Typically, the Cisco SAN switch assigns a state code to every port to indicate the operational state of that port – this code is in fact a number between 1 and 131. Of these 131 state codes, a few codes might indicate Critical failures, a few could indicate Major errors, a few more could denote Minor issues, and some may just report general status information. 

To indicate to the eG agent which of the 131 state codes represent Critical failures, which ones indicate Major errors, and which state codes denote Minor issues,   the administrator can provide a comma-separated list of codes against the CriticalErrorCodes, MajorErrorCodes, and MinorErrorCodes parameters, respectively. For instance, the administrators might consider the codes 3, 6, and 7 to be critical, as they represent critical failures such as a hwfailure, a swfailure, and a linkfailure, respectively. Therefore, the CriticalErrorCodes specification in this case will be: 3,6,7.

The eG agent on the other hand, internally assigns a number to each of the error code specifications  – 3 for Critical, 2 for Major, 1 for Minor, and 0 for Others.  

Now, assume that the SNMP MIB of the switch returns the state code 6 for a particular port.  In this case, the eG agent first checks whether any of the three test parameters, namely - CriticalErrorCodes, MajorErrorCodes, and MinorErrorCodes- are configured with the reported state code – in the case of our example, the CriticalErrorCodes parameter is configured with the state code 6. Once a match is found, the eG agent automatically reports the value it internally maintains for Critical error codes – i.e., the value 3 - as the value of the Operational status measure for this port. If a match is not found – i.e., if none of the three parameters mentioned above are configured with the state code representing the current state of the port - then the eG agent automatically reports the value 0 as the value of the Operational status measure – this is because, the eG agent automatically assumes that such a state code belongs to the Others category.

This test reports a measure named Operational status, which indicates the current operational state of every fibre channel port. Typically, the Cisco SAN switch assigns a state code to every port to indicate the operational state of that port – this code is in fact a number between 1 and 131. Of these 131 state codes, a few codes might indicate Critical failures, a few could indicate Major errors, a few more could denote Minor issues, and some may just report general status information. 

To indicate to the eG agent which of the 131 state codes represent Critical failures, which ones indicate Major errors, and which state codes denote Minor issues, the administrator can provide a comma-separated list of codes against the CriticalErrorCodes, MajorErrorCodes, and MinorErrorCodes parameters, respectively. For instance, the administrators might consider the codes 11, 12, and 13 to be major, as they represent major error conditions such as vsanInactive, adminDown, and channelAdminDown, respectively. Therefore, the MajorErrorCodes specification in this case will be: 11,12,13.

The eG agent on the other hand, internally assigns a number to each of the error code specifications  – 3 for Critical, 2 for Major, 1 for Minor, and 0 for Others.  

Now, assume that the SNMP MIB of the switch returns the state code 13 for a particular port.  In this case, the eG agent first checks whether any of the three test parameters, namely - CriticalErrorCodes, MajorErrorCodes, and MinorErrorCodes - are configured with the reported state code – in the case of our example, the MajorErrorCodes parameter is configured with the state code 13. Once a match is found, the eG agent automatically reports the value it internally maintains for Major error codes – i.e., the value 2 - as the value of the Operational status measure for this port. If a match is not found – i.e., if none of the three parameters mentioned above are configured with the state code representing the current state of a port - then the eG agent automatically reports the value 0 as the value of the Operational status measure – this is because, the eG agent automatically assumes that such a state code belongs to the Others category. 

This test reports a measure named Operational status, which indicates the current operational state of every fibre channel port. Typically, the Cisco SAN switch assigns a state code to every port to indicate the operational state of that port – this code is in fact a number between 1 and 131. Of these 131 state codes, a few codes might indicate Critical failures, a few could indicate Major errors, a few more could denote Minor issues, and some may just report general status information. 

To indicate to the eG agent which of the 131 state codes represent Critical failures, which ones indicate Major errors, and which state codes denote Minor issues, the administrator can provide a comma-separated list of codes against the CriticalErrorCodes, MajorErrorCodes, and MinorErrorCodes parameters, respectively. For instance, the administrators might consider the codes 25, 29, and 30 to be minor, as they represent minor error conditions such as a vsanMismatchIsolation, fcotNotPresent, and fcotVendorNotSupported, respectively. Therefore, the MinorErrorCodes specification in this case will be: 25,29,30.

The eG agent on the other hand, internally assigns a number to each of the error code specifications  – 3 for Critical, 2 for Major, 1 for Minor, and 0 for Others.

Now, assume that the SNMP MIB of the switch returns the state code 25 for a particular port.  In this case, the eG agent first checks whether any of three test parameters, namely - CriticalErrorCodes, MajorErrorCodes, and MinorErrorCodes - are configured with the reported state code – in the case of our example, the MinorErrorCodes parameter is configured with the state code 25. Once a match is found, the eG agent automatically reports the value it internally maintains for Minor error codes – i.e., the value 1- as the value of the Operational status measure for this port. If a match is not found – i.e., if none of the three parameters mentioned above are configured with the state code representing the current state of the port - then the eG agent automatically reports the value 0 as the value of the Operational status measure – this is because, the eG agent automatically assumes that such a state code belongs to the Others category.

Note:

• If you do not want to assign a particular severity to a specific set of error codes, then specify none against the corresponding test parameter. For instance, if you do not want to classify any errors as Minor, then set the MinorErrorCodes parameter to none. 
• If one of the three parameters above – i.e., CriticalErrorCodes, MajorErrorCodes, or MinorErrorCodes – is set to Default, then it indicates that all those error codes that are not assigned a particular priority will automatically assume this priority. For instance, if the CriticalErrorCodes parameter is set to 3,6,7, and the MajorErrorCodes parameter is set to Default, then, it indicates that all error codes other than 3, 6, and 7 will be automatically assigned the Major priority.
• At any given point in time, only one of the three parameters can be set to Default.
• If all three parameters are set to none, then the Operational status measure will report the value 0.

Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds.

By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic – for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components – to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set this flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. Sometimes, the test may not report metrics when AES192 or AES256 is chosen as the Encryption type. To ensure that the test report metrics consistently, administrators need to set this flag to Yes. By default, this parameter is set to No.