TCP OS Test

This test tracks various statistics pertaining to TCP connections to and from each guest on a Hyper-V host. The details of the test are provided below:

Target of the test : A Hyper-V / Hyper-V VDI server

Agent executing the test : An internal agent

Output of the test : For a Hyper-V server, one set of results will be reported for every powered-on VM on the server.

For a Hyper-V VDI server, one set of results will be reported for the user who is currently logged into each virtual desktop on the server

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test period

This indicates how often should the test be executed.

Host

Specify the HOST for which this test is to be configured.

Port

Specify the port at which the target host is listening. By default, this is NULL

Inside View Using

By default, this test obtains the “inside view” of VMs using the eG VM Agent. Accordingly, the Inside view using flag is set to eG VM Agent by default. The eG VM Agent is a piece of software, which should be installed on every VM on a hypervisor. Every time the eG agent runs this test, it uses the eG VM Agent to pull relevant 'inside view' metrics from each VM. Once the metrics are collected, the eG agent then communicates with each VM agent and pulls these metrics, without requiring administrator privileges. Refer to Configuring the Remote Agent to Obtain the Inside View of VMs for more details on the eG VM Agent.

Domain, Admin User, and Admin Password, and Confirm Password

By default, these parameters are set to none. This is because, by default, the eG agent collects 'inside view' metrics using the eG VM agent on each VM. Domain administrator privileges need not be granted to the eG agent if it uses this default approach to obtain the 'inside view' of Windows VMs.

Report By User

For the Hyper-V monitoring model, the Report By User flag is set to No by default, indicating that by default, the guest operating systems on the Hyper-V server are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, for the Hyper-V VDI model, this flag is set to Yes by default; this implies that in case of VDI servers, by default, the guests will be identified using the login of the user who is accessing the guest OS. In other words, in VDI environments, this test will, by default, report measures for every username_on_virtualmachinename.

Report Powered OS

This flag becomes relevant only if the report by user flag is set to ‘Yes’.

If the Report Powered OS flag is set to Yes (which is the default setting), then this test will report measures for even those VMs that do not have any users logged in currently. Such guests will be identified by their virtualmachine name and not by the username_on_virtualmachinename. On the other hand, if the Report Powered OS flag is set to No, then this test will not report measures for those VMs to which no users are logged in currently.

Report Powered ON

You can set the Report Powered ON status to Yes, so that the test reports an additional measure, Is VM powered on?, revealing whether a guest OS is currently running or not. The default status of this flag is set to Yes for a Hyper-V server. For a Hyper-V VDI server on the other hand, the default status of this flag is No. This is because, in such environments, the virtual desktops will be in the powered-off state most of the time.

Ignore VMs Inside View

Administrators of some high security Hyper-V environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the 'inside view' of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the Ignore VMs Inside View parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your Ignore VMs Inside View specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on a Hyper-V host by default.

Note:

While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the Ignore VMs Inside View text box.

Exclude VMs

Administrators of some virtualized environments may not want to monitor some of their less-critical VMs - for instance, VM templates - both from 'outside' and from 'inside'. The eG agent in this case can be configured to completely exclude such VMs from its monitoring purview. To achieve this, provide a comma-separated list of VMs to be excluded from monitoring in the Exclude VMs text box. Instead of VMs, VM name patterns can also be provided here in a comma-separated list. For example, your Exclude VMs specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside and outside views of all VMs on a virtual host by default. By providing a comma-separated list of VMs/VM name patterns in the Exclude VMs text box, you can make sure the eG agent stops collecting 'inside' and 'outside' view metrics for a configured set of VMs.

Ignore WINNT

By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the Ignore WINNT flag is set to Yes by default.

Measurements reported by the test:
Measurements Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Incoming connections to VM

Indicates the connections per second received by the guest.

Conns/Sec

A high value can indicate an increase in input load.

Outgoing connections to VM

Indicates the connections per second initiated by the guest.

Conns/Sec

A high value can indicate that one or more of the applications executing on the guest have started using a number of TCP connections to some other guest or host.

Current connections to VM

Indicates the currently established connections.

Number

A sudden increase in the number of connections established on a guest can indicate either an increase in load to one or more of the applications executing on the guest, or that one or more of the applications are experiencing a problem (e.g., a slow down). On Microsoft Windows, the current connections metrics is the total number of TCP connections that are currently in the ESTABLISHED or CLOSE_WAIT states.

Connection drops on VM

Indicates the rate of established TCP connections dropped from the TCP listen queue.

Conns/Sec

This value should be 0 for most of the time. Any non-zero value implies that one or more applications on the guest are under overload.

Connection failures on VM

Indicates the rate of half open TCP connections dropped from the listen queue.

Conns/Sec

This value should be 0 for most of the time. A prolonged non-zero value can indicate either that the server is under SYN attack or that there is a problem with the network link to the server that is resulting in connections being dropped without completion.