Tcp Traffic - OS Test
Since most popular applications rely on the TCP protocol for their proper functioning, traffic monitoring at the TCP protocol layer can provide good indicators of the performance seen by the applications that use TCP. The most critical metric at the TCP protocol layer is the percentage of retransmissions. Since TCP uses an exponential back-off algorithm for its retransmissions, any retransmission of packets over the network (due to network congestion, noise, data link errors, etc.) can have a significant impact on the throughput seen by applications that use TCP. This test monitors the TCP protocol traffic to and from a guest, and particularly monitors retransmissions.
Target of the test : A Proxmox Hypervisor
Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent
Outputs of the test : One set of results for each powered-on VM on the Proxmox Hypervisor being monitored
Parameter | Description |
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Test period |
How often should the test be executed. |
Host |
The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured. |
Port |
The port at which the specified host listens. By default, this will be NULL. |
Proxmox Node Name |
Specify the name of the Proxmox node that you wish to monitor in this text box. By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the test monitor all the nodes in the target hypervisor. |
Ignore VMs Inside View |
Administrators of some high security Proxmox 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, yourIgnore 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 Proxmox Hypervisor 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. |
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. |
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. |
Domain, Admin User, Admin Password, and Confirm Password |
By default, this test connects to each virtual VM remotely and attempts to collect “inside view” metrics. In order to obtain a remote connection, the test must be configured with user privileges that allow remote communication with the virtual VMs. The first step towards this is to specify the Domain within which the virtual VMs reside. The Admin User and Admin Password will change according to the Domain specification. Discussed below are the different values that the Domain parameter can take, and how they impact the Admin User and Admin Password specifications:
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Report By User |
While monitoring a Proxmox Hypervisor, the Report By User flag is set to No by default, indicating that by default, the VM operating systems on the target hypervisor are identified using the hostname specified in the operating system. On the other hand, if you want the desktops to be identified using the login of the user who is accessing them, set this flag to Yes. 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 this 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 VMs 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. |
Segments Sent Min |
Specify the minimum threshold for the number of segments sent/transmitted over the network. The default value is 10; in this case, the test will compute/report the Retransmit ratio from VM measure only if more than 10 segments are sent over the network – i.e., if the value of the Segments sent by VM measure crosses the value 10. On the other hand, if the Segments sent by VM measure reports a value less than 10, then the test will not compute/report the Retransmit ratio from VM measure. This is done to ensure that no false alerts are generated by the eG Enterprise system for the Retransmit ratio from VM measure. You can change this minimum threshold to any value of your choice. |
DD Frequency |
Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD frequency. |
Detailed Diagnosis |
To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:
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Measurement | Description | Measurement Unit | Interpretation |
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Segments received by VM |
Indicates the rate at which segments are received by the guest. |
Segments/Sec |
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Segments sent by VM |
Indicates the rate at which segments are sent to clients |
Segments/Sec |
|
Retransmits by VM |
Indicates the rate at which segments are being retransmitted by the guest |
Segments/Sec |
|
Retransmit ratio from VM |
Indicates the ratio of the rate of data retransmissions to the rate of data being sent by the guest |
Percent |
Ideally, the retransmission ratio should be low (< 5%). Most often retransmissions at the TCP layer have significant impact on application performance. Very often a large number of retransmissions are caused by a congested network link, bottlenecks at a router causing buffer/queue overflows, or by lousy network links due to poor physical layer characteristics (e.g., low signal to noise ratio). By tracking the percentage of retransmissions at a guest, an administrator can quickly be alerted to problem situations in the network link(s) to the guest that may be impacting the service performance. |