14.1 SunNet Manager Console

The SunNet Manager Console is the central management application in the SunNet Manager package--the place where you initiate management tasks and management information is returned.

14.1.1 Management Database

The Console relies on the definitions and information contained in a management database (MDB). Emerging open management standards (for example, OSI and SNMP) specify that agents abstract the properties (or attributes) of managed objects into data items (for example, "how busy a CPU is" may become a value between 0 and 100). In SunNet Manager, the attributes

of a managed object are described in a portion of the MDB called the agent schema. The agent is able to respond to the manager's request because both use the same data definitions for the managed object.

Each instance of the Console requires a separate, runtime database. In other words, multiple Console instances cannot share a single runtime database.

The MDB data and any updates made using the graphical editing capabilities constitute a dynamic runtime database, which may be saved to an ASCII database file at any time. The ASCII format supports easy modification and portability to other systems. See Chapter 18, "Management Database," for more on MDB files and how to modify them.

SNM provides an application programming interface (API) that allows an application program to query or modify the runtime database. The API functions are described in your Site/SunNet/Domain Manager Application and Agent Development Guide.

14.1.2 Graphical Interface

The SunNet Manager Console presents an object-oriented interface which may be tailored to depict a particular management domain. The Console uses the OPEN LOOK Graphical User Interface running under OpenWindows^(TM) 3.0 or later, Motif, or Window Manager. OpenWindows supports the X11 protocol, which allows the Console and other application windows to be displayed on a network display that is managed by an X11 server. X terminals must be fully compatible with the MIT X11 release 4 server and use an OPEN LOOK-compliant window manager.

The SNM Console supports X terminals by allowing multiple instances of the Console, using separate runtime databases, to run on a single machine at the same time. Each instance of the Console is mapped to the name of the user who invokes it. Each instance of the Console will only work with other SNM tools that use the same user name.

14.1.3 Data and Event Reporting

The Console provides mechanisms for initiating requests for data reporting and event reporting. Data reporting allows you to direct agents to send reports of raw management data on a periodic basis. Event reporting allows you to direct agents to report only when specified conditions are met (that is, when an event occurs).

You direct an agent by making a request in which you specify the parameters for a desired management task. The request contains information on the object to be managed and how often the agent is to report.

When requesting data reports, you can elect to gather data in groups or individually, have data reported immediately or on a deferred basis, and store returned data in files. For event reports, you have many options for setting the condition(s) of the event.

The Console also supports the display of reported data and event indications (including audible, visual, and programmatic mechanisms). Visual changes resulting from predefined event conditions are propagated through the Console so that you can see at a glance if an event has occurred. From the Console, you can also use the Set Tool, a window interface that allows you to change attribute values. Currently, only the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) proxy agent supports Set Tool operations. With the Set Tool, you can request to change (set) the value of one or more attributes in a group or among different groups. The Console can also be extended to support user specified commands as well.

Context sensitive help is available on-line for Console screens through popup Help windows.

14.1.4 Console Tools

SunNet Manager includes several tools that you can invoke from the Console:

• The IP Discover tool seeks out network elements and automatically creates a graphical representation of your network. As it finds elements, Discover adds them to the runtime database. Refer to Chapter 22, "IP Discover," for a description of the Discover functions.

• The IPX Discover tool seeks out IPX network elements and topology, discovers services these nodes provide, and automatically creates a graphical representation of the network. As it finds elements, IPX Discover adds them to the runtime database.
• The Results Browser allows you to examine and organize log files. See Chapter 20, "Browser," for Browser functions.
• The Results Grapher allows you to visualize data reports and log file information. You can send data directly from data reports to the Grapher, or you can send log file data from the Browser to the Grapher. See Chapter 21, "Results Grapher," for Grapher functions.
• The Set Tool allows you to change SNMP attribute values. Refer to Chapter 24, "Set Tool," for more information about Set Tool.

Context-sensitive help is available on-line for these tools through popup Help windows. See your installation guide for information about the environment variable required for SNM on-line help.

14.2 Freezing the Console (Read-Only Mode)

Starting with version 2.3, you can place the console in read-only mode so that object additions, deletions, and updates will not be allowed through the console or through any management application.

Consistent with previous versions of SunNet Manager, read-only state allows only one instance of the console to be active for a given runtime database.

In read-only mode, you can run your applications and manage requests. However, the following menu items are dimmed: Edit, Create Predefined Requests, and Change Type.

To enable read-only mode:

1. Open Properties in the Console menu.

2. Click SELECT on Miscellaneous from the Category pulldown item.

3. Click SELECT on the read-only mode button.

4. Click SELECT on Apply.

14.2.1 Topology

When the Console is in Read-Only mode, see Figure 14-1, you cannot move or delete topology objects. No new objects can be added or updated, nor will you be able to create new predefined requests. The type of object cannot be changed, and appropriate menu items are dimmed. You can still send data and event requests and configure devices.

Figure 14-1

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Note - When operating in this mode, applications such as IP/IPX Discover and CC Receive will not be able to add, modify, or delete topology objects from the runtime database.

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14.3 Control Panel Buttons and Menus

The Console base menu contains the following control panel buttons:

• File
• View
• Edit
• Props
• Requests
• Tools
• Goto

They are discussed in the following sections.

14.3.1 File Button

Use the File button menu to load (read) management database (MDB) or schema files, and predefined request records. You can also use this menu to save predefined requests, or instances in the runtime database to a file.

Figure 14-2

14.3.1.1 Load Option

Use the Load option to:

• Specify an ASCIII-format database file to load into the runtime database.
• Load a predefined data and/or event request file into the runtime database.

14.3.1.2 Save Option

Use the Save option to:

• Save the runtime database version of the predefined data and event request file into an ASCII-format file.

• Save the runtime database into an ASCII-format file.

14.3.1.3 About Option

Use the About option to:

• Find out information about the current release of the product, including version number, licensing requirements, software packages, and documentation titles.

14.3.1.4 Load/Save Management Database Options

The Load and Save options' Management Database window is shown in Figure 14-3.

Figure 14-3

The directory from which you started the Console is supplied as the default directory in the Directory field, and its contents are displayed in the scrolling list. To load a file from the list, double-click SELECT on the file name or click SELECT on the file name. Then click SELECT on the Load button. In the Name field, specify a file name in the default directory, a fully-qualified file name, or

an alternate directory path. If you specify a directory path, the directory becomes the default directory, and its contents are displayed in the scrolling list.

If the parser detects an error (for example, incorrect syntax) while loading an MDB file, it displays error messages in the Load/Save window footer and backs out all changes made to the runtime database for the particular file. You must fix and reload the entire file.

Files Must be ASCII Files must be ASCII-format (for example, a runtime database saved using the File >> Save >> Management Database option). If you attempt to load a non-ASCII file, an error message is displayed in the Console window footer: <file name>: Not Readable by SunNet Manager...

Saving the Current Runtime Database You can use the File >> Save >> Management Database option to save the current version of the Console's runtime database to a file. This is especially useful if you have made modifications to the Console and you wish to save the modified Console's runtime database for future use. If, for instance, the machine on which the Console is running goes down and you have saved the runtime database to a file using the File >> Save >> Management Database option, you can reinvoke SunNet Manager and either specify the saved runtime database file using the -i option, or you can use the File >> Load >> Management Database option to load the modified version you saved earlier.

Unloading the Runtime Database There is no way to unload the runtime database. To use another database, you must quit the Console session, then restart the Console with the -i option.

14.3.1.5 Load Predefined Requests Option

Select the File >> Load >> Predefined Requests menu option to load a file containing predefined data and/or event request records into the runtime database. This option is intended for use by knowledgeable users who have a file containing their own predefined data and event requests records which they prefer to use instead of, or in conjunction with, the predefined data and event requests provided with the current product. Refer to the Section below,

"Predefined Requests Supplied with SunNet Manager" for more detailed information about the predefined data and event requests provided with the current product. Refer to the Section below, "Creating, Modifying, or Deleting Predefined Requests" for a complete description on how to build, modify, or delete predefined data and event requests.

Requests Must be ASCII Files To load files containing predefined event or data requests, these files must be ASCII-format files. For example, predefined requests that are saved using the File >> Save >> Predefined Requests menu option are saved in ASCII format. If you attempt to load a non-ASCII file, an error message is displayed in the footer of the Console window:

<file name>: Not Readable by SunNet Manager...

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Warning - Attempting to load a file containing predefined data and/or event request records that have duplicate names of records already existing in the runtime database will cause the "Load of <filename> failed -- see error report for detailed error message. You can view the error report using the View >> menu option. If this problem occurs, use your favorite text editor to remove or rename the duplicate predefined data and/or event record name(s) from the file being loaded. Then, use the File >> Load >> Predefined Requests menu option

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14.3.1.6 Save Predefined Requests Option

Select the File >> Save >> Predefined Requests menu option to save the runtime database version of the predefined data and event requests records to the ASCII file you specify. Refer to the Section below, "Predefined Requests Supplied with SunNet Manager" for a complete description of predefined data and event requests.

14.4 View Button

Use the View button menu to:

• Display a list of the alarm reports received.
• Display a log of the data reports received.
• Display a log of the event/trap reports received.

• Display a log of the error reports received.
• Display a list of machines that have had an event occur on them.
• Specify a background image to be displayed for the current view.
• Remove a background image from the current view.
• Find a particular element.
• Look at the contents of the clipboard.

The View Console button is described in detail in Chapter 16, "View Reports."

14.5 Edit Button

The Edit button menu provides a graphical editing capability for creating/deleting, and cutting/copying/pasting glyphs. To access the Edit menu, move the mouse pointer to either the Edit button, or to any open area (where there is no glyph) in the view, and press MENU.

Figure 14-4

Edit operations make use of a clipboard. The clipboard holds elements edited via the SunNet Manager Console graphical editor. The clipboard is read-only -- you cannot modify clipboard elements.

14.5.1 Select All

Select All selects all elements in the current view for copying, cutting, or deleting.

14.5.2 Cut

Cut removes the selected elements from the view and places them in the clipboard. As an alternative, you can press the Cut function key. You can only cut an element if it has a non-empty subview.

14.5.3 Copy

Copy copies the selected element(s)--element or request instances--to the clipboard. As an alternative, you can press the Copy function key.

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Caution - Perform only one Copy operation at a time. You cannot append to the clipboard--the latest Copy overwrites the clipboard's previous contents.

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14.5.4 Paste

Paste inserts the clipboard contents at the current mouse location. Alternatively, you can press the Paste (also known as Get) function key.

You cannot paste an element (a component, view, connection, or bus) in a view where it already is displayed. Duplicate element names are not allowed in a single view.

You can copy and paste a request in a different element's subview. (See Section 14.10.8, "Show Subview," on page 14-25 for a discussion of how to navigate to different views using the Glyph >> Show Subview menu entry.) Pasting a request into the subview of a particular element inserts the request into that subview and also launches the request targeted at that element. You can use this method to launch the same requests for multiple elements.

To copy elements into a view, you can do one of the following:

• Select one or more elements, Copy them, then go to the target view and Paste.
• Select one or more elements, Copy them, then point at the glyph for the target view and press the Paste function key.
• Move the mouse pointer to the desired element and press SELECT. To copy additional elements, move the mouse pointer to them and press ADJUST. Drag the mouse pointer to the target view. For a single element, release SELECT to place it in the target view. For multiple elements, release ADJUST.

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Caution - Perform only one Cut operation at a time. You cannot append to the clipboard--the latest Cut overwrites the clipboard's previous contents.

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14.5.5 Delete

Delete removes the selected element from the view but does not place it in the clipboard. Deleting an element causes the record for that element to be removed from the runtime database. You cannot Delete an element that has an active data or event request associated with it. You also cannot Delete an element that has a non-empty subview.

14.5.6 Create

Create displays a window that allows you to create a new element (a component, view, connection, or bus). See Figure 14-5.

Figure 14-5

You specify the Category and Type. The glyph image will be displayed for you to preview. When you are satisfied with your selections, click on the Create button. A Properties window for the selected element type appears, as shown in Figure 14-6.

Figure 14-6

See Section 14.6, "Props Button," for a description of the Element Properties window. The Alias button at the bottom of the Properties window is dimmed when using Edit>Create to create the new element.

The glyphs in Table 14-1, "Glyphs Used for Multiple Element Types," are used for more than one type of element.

Table 14-1

Glyph	Element Category	Element Type
	Component	ss330 ss370 sun-deskside
	Component	sun-server sun470
	Connection	link rs232
	Component	IPX-Latern Device IPX-PC Unixware
	Component	IPX-Bridge IPX-Router Netware Router
	Component	IPX Print Server IPX Printer

If you use the Edit button to create an element, the glyph is positioned after any explicitly positioned glyphs. Otherwise, the glyph is positioned as near as possible to the upper left-hand corner of the view window. You may also

access the Edit functions by pressing MENU while pointing at any blank space in a view. Creating a new element in this manner positions the glyph at the pointer location. (This is an explicitly positioned glyph.)

Table 14-2 shows a summary of whether an operation can (yes) or cannot (no) be done on the various elements.

Table 14-2

Operation	Component/ Bus/View	Connection	Simple Connect	Request
Simple Connect	yes	no	no	no
Copy	yes	yes	no	yes
Create	yes	yes	no	no
Cut	yes	yes	yes	yes
Delete	yes	yes	yes	yes
Double Click	ye	yes	no	no
Drag	yes	yes	no	yes
Drop into	yes	yes	no	no
Paste	yes	yes	no	yes
Properties	yes	yes	no	yes

Note that "simple" connects have not yet been described; see Section 14.10.10, "Connect," for more information.

14.6 Props Button

The Props button allows you to view, modify, and configure specific element or Console properties. See Chapter 17, "Props Menu," for a description of the functions of the Console Properties window.

14.7 Requests Button

The Requests button menu allows you to send a Quick Dump request, send data and event requests, build predefined data and event requests, or get a summary of

requests you are sending. See Chapter 15, "Requests Management," for detailed information about sending requests.

14.8 Tools Button

The Tools button menu allows you to invoke SunNet Manager utilities from the Console. When you click MENU on the Tools button, the menu shown in Figure 14-7, is displayed. Features of this button are discussed in detail in Chapter 24, "Set Tool."

Figure 14-7

The following options are available through the Tools menu:

• Browser allows you to examine and organize log files. Chapter 20, "Browser," describes the Browser Tool functions.
• Grapher allows you to visualize data reports and log file information. See Chapter 21, "Results Grapher," for a description of the Grapher Tool functions.

• Snapshot enables you to capture and print Console screens. For more information about using the OpenWindows Snapshot utility, refer to the SunOS 4.x DeskSet Environment Reference Guide.
• IP Discover automatically creates a graphical representation of your network. See Chapter 22, "IP Discover," for a description of the Discover Tool.
• IPX Discover automatically discovers IPX nodes such as NetWare clients and servers and displays their logical topology. It also discovers NetWare services regardless of protocols used. See Chapter 23, "IPX Discover," for more information.
• NLA allows you to use the Network Layout Assistant to read the database and automatically place devices and connections. See Chapter 12, "NetWork Layout Assistant," for more information.
• Cooperative Consoles Config allows you to configure relationships between multiple Site/SunNet/Domain Manager consoles. See the Cooperative Consoles Administrative Guide for more information.
• Cooperative Consoles Receive allows you to start the exchange of information between multiple Site/SunNet/Domain Manager consoles. See the Cooperative Consoles Administrative Guide for more information.
• Customize allows you to create a customized Tools menu. The customized Tool menu remains in the runtime database, and as such, will carry over to any subsequent invocations of SunNet Manager as long as the -i parameter is not specified with the snm command.

14.9 Goto Button

The Goto button menu allows you to navigate through views defined in your management database. The Home option displays the home or top-level view. The other options in the Goto menu are the most recently-displayed views. Up to 16 view names in addition to Home can appear in the menu. An example menu is shown in Figure 14-8.

Figure 14-8

Clicking SELECT on the Goto button causes the last-visited view to be displayed. You can optionally change this operation so that clicking SELECT on the Goto button causes the Home view to be displayed. This is specified in the Miscellaneous category of the Console Properties window. (See Chapter 17, "Props Menu," for more information.) If you know the name of the view you want to see, you can enter the view name on the line next to the Goto button and press Return.

14.10 Element Glyph Menu

The element Glyph menu allows you to:

• Launch a Quick Dump request for an element.
• Launch standard and predefined data and event requests.
• Start a user-defined command on an element.
• Analyze event/trap and error reports.
• Invoke SunNet Manager tools.
• Change the glyph state of an element.
• Display the subview of an element.

• Display and modify the properties of an element.
• Connect an element to another element.
• Change the element type of a component.
• Turn off automatic node management for a subview, if automatic node management is enabled in the Console Properties window. See "Automatic Management" in Chapter 17, "Props Menu," for more information.

Press MENU on the target glyph to display the Glyph menu as shown in Figure 14-9.

Figure 14-9

Following is a description of each item in the glyph menu.

14.10.1 Quick Dump

Quick Dump launches a request for a one-time data report of all the attributes in an agent group. Refer to "Using Quick Dump to Send a Data Report" in Chapter 15, "Requests Management," for information about using the Quick Dump option.

14.10.2 Send Request

Send Request allows you to send a data or event request. Refer to "Sending Data and Event Requests" in Chapter 15, "Requests Management," for information about using the Send Request option.

14.10.3 Send Predefined

Send Predefined allows you to send a previously created predefined data or event request. Predefined data and event requests are built by using the SNM Console Requests >> Create Predefined option and assigning a Request Name to the request being built. Refer to "Sending Predefined Data and Event Requests" in Chapter 15, "Requests Management," for information about using the Send Predefined option.

14.10.4 Set Request

Set Request allows you to set attribute values. The Set Request selection is dimmed if there are no writable attributes for any agent on the target system. Refer to Chapter 24, "Set Tool," for a detailed discussion.

14.10.5 Alarm Reports

Alarm Reports allows you to analyze event/trap and error reports for a specific element. For a detailed description of the Alarm Reports option, see the discussion under "Viewing Alarm Reports" in Chapter 16, "View Reports."

14.10.6 Tools

The Tools submenu allows you to execute user-designated commands. See Figure 14-10.

Figure 14-10

The commands in this menu are defined in the elements.schema file. (Refer to Chapter 18, "Management Database," for more information.) The following tools are defined by default:

• Rlogin--allows you to log in to the selected machine. This command is defined for workstations only.
• Telnet--allows you to communicate with the selected machine, using the TELNET protocol. This command is defined for all devices. However, it may not be valid for devices such as bridges and LAN boxes.

14.10.7 Glyph State

14.10.7.1 Blinking and Dimming

Glyph State allows you to turn blinking or dimming on/off for a glyph or turn a glyph that has changed color back to its normal color (see Figure 14-11). For example, you can turn blinking off or turn a glyph back to its normal color once you have recognized that an event has been reported for a particular element. By default, glyph state changes are propagated through the Console's view hierarchy. Refer to the Section on "Events and Traps" in Chapter 17, "Props Menu," for more information about glyph state propagation. Refer to your SunNet Manager User's Guide for Solaris 2.x/x86 for information on how to have your link(s) blink and turn a different color when an event has occurred.

14.10.7.2 Pending State

Starting with version 2.3 of SunNet Manager, a glyph can be put into pending state. In pending state, the request action is cleared and the object is put into a "frozen" state so that no new event or trap for the device will change the state of the glyph. Figure 14-11 shows the "pending state" option. For more information, refer to the Section on "Events and Traps" in Chapter 17, "Props Menu."

Figure 14-11

14.10.8 Show Subview

Show Subview changes views to the next lower level view in the containment hierarchy. The particular subview depends on the context of the current view. The Show Subview option for a subnet shows the element instances that are members of that view. Show Subview for a particular element instance shows all requests targeted at that element.

You can also display an element's view by double-clicking SELECT on the element's glyph. Figure 14-12 shows a sample Show Subview window.

Figure 14-12

14.10.9 Properties

The Properties item of the Glyph Menu displays the properties of a particular element glyph.

The Properties pop-up window is divided into four sections: element data, agent/proxy list, color, and a control panel.

• The element data consists of panel text items representing the fields in the element type data record as defined in the elements.schema file. These fields are displayed in a scrollable panel.

  The values in the fields SNMP RdCommunity (read), SNMP WrCommunity (write), SNMP Vendor Proxy, and SNMP Timeout are parameters that are used only for requests to the SNMP proxy agent. (Refer to Chapter 19, "SNMP Support," for more information about the SNMP proxy agent.) If you do not specify values in the SNMP RdCommunity, SNMP WrCommunity, and SNMP Timeout fields, the SNMP proxy agent uses the following values:

• Read community is "public"
• Write community is "public"
• Timeout is the value (in seconds) specified by the keyword na.snmp.request_timeout in the snm.conf file on the system where the SNMP proxy agent resides. The keyword's supplied value is 5 (seconds).

SNMP Vendor Proxy is an optional field that specifies the name of a proxy system with which the SNMP proxy agent will communicate. If this field is specified, the SNMP request is passed through the element to the secondary proxy. This field should only be specified when a vendor has supplied an SNMP proxy agent to manage a particular device or set of devices. The vendor's SNMP proxy agent communicates with the SunNet Manager SNMP proxy agent via SNMP, but communicates with the element using either SNMP or a different protocol.

Glyph State is a field that appears for an element of types 'view' or 'bus'. This field allows you to specify whether the glyph states of elements in the subview are propagated to the element.

Default Proxy is a field that appears in subnets that correspond to the element category 'bus' and element type 'ethernet'. This field specifies the default proxy system for any elements that are discovered in the subnet. When the Discover Tool is run for the subnet, the name specified in this field appears in the proxy system fields in the Properties window for each element in the subnet. The name you specify for Default Proxy should be the host name of a system on the subnet. This would confine polling and data gathering to the subnet and only relevant management information would pass from the proxy to the Console.

Starting with version 2.3, two attributes have been added: Physical_Address and SNMP_SysObjectID.

Physical_Address is the MAC address of the device, represented in hex notation. SNMP_SysObjectID is a SNMP unique system identifier, represented as an object identifier string. These are read-only fields updated by IP_discovery.

For multiport and multi-interface devices, the MAC address of the first two interfaces would be stored. The following components contain two physical address entries (Physical_Address1, Physical_Address2):

· component.bridge

· component.router
· component.hub

• The agent schema list--agent schema file name, proxy system (if applicable), and brief description--shows all the agent schemas the SunNet Manager Console knows about.

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Note - Most of the agents supplied with SunNet Manager have only one agent schema file. The SNMP proxy agent can use Sun-supplied SNMP schema files and/or device-specific schema files created from a MIB file.

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The "check" box to the left of the agent schema list provides a convenient method of indicating that this element can be managed using a particular schema. To toggle the check box state between checked and not checked, click SELECT on the check box.

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Note - Merely checking an agent schema box does not make the element manageable through the particular agent. The appropriate agent software must be installed and running on the system.

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In the case of a proxy agent, the SunNet Manager Console allows you to specify the name of the Sun workstation or server where the proxy agent is running. This proxy system is used as the default in Quick Dump, data, and event reporting requests. If you used the Discover tool to create your management database, each discovered SunNet Manager host is the default proxy system for agents that are installed on the host. For discovered systems that are not SunNet Manager hosts, localhost--the Console system--is the default proxy system.

The agent schema list is generated from files in the directories specified by the Schema Locations setting in the Console Properties Locations category (For more information, refer to "Locations" in Chapter 17, "Props Menu.") If you don't want an agent schema to appear in the list, remove the corresponding file from the directory. (Before you remove an agent schema file, make sure that the schema is not defined for any elements in an existing instance file. Otherwise, you will not be able to load the instance file.)

• The color section of the Properties window provides three fields--red, green and blue--that specify the hue of the glyph associated with a particular machine. To change a hue, press SELECT on the color slider and drag the mouse pointer to the right or the left. Or, enter in numeric values. The intensity for each of the three colors falls in the range of 0 through 255. All zeros makes the glyph transparent; the glyph appears the same color as the background of the Console window. White is all 255s. The box to the left of the color fields displays the currently-defined color.

  If you are running the SunNet Manager Console on a monochrome monitor, modifying the color palette has no effect on the glyphs displayed on your machine. However, these modifications are kept in the runtime database. If you save your runtime database to an instance file and use this instance file when running the Console on a color workstation, the color palette values would be used.

• The control panel has the following buttons: Apply, Reset, and Alias. Use the Apply button to put into effect changes made to the properties. Use the Reset button to set the data to its initial state or to the state of the most recent Apply. Use the Alias button to apply one or more alternate names for a machine that has multiple network interfaces, such as a router, for using with SunNet Manager. Figure 14-13 shows the Alias window for the element named boombox.

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Note - The Alias button will be dimmed if the Edit >> Create option was used to create the new element. Refer to Section 14.5, "Edit Button," for information regarding the Edit >> Create option.

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Figure 14-13

Enter a name at the Alias Name prompt and click SELECT on Add to add the name to the Aliases List. To change a name, click SELECT on the name in the Aliases List, make your change to the name as it subsequently appears on the Alias Name line, and click SELECT on Change. To delete a name, click SELECT on the name in the Aliases List, then click SELECT on Delete. At any time, you can click SELECT on the pushpin in the upper right corner of the aliases window to unpin and thereby dismiss the window.

The control panel at the bottom right corner of the element Properties window, indicates if you are in Browse mode (reviewing the properties of an existing element) or Create mode (creating a new element).

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Note - Instead of using the Glyph >> Properties pull-down menu, you can access the properties of a particular element by moving the mouse pointer over the element glyph and pressing the Props function key.

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14.10.10 Connect

Connect draws connections from selected (highlighted) elements to the element glyph on which the mouse arrow is currently pointing. This type of connection is "simple," in contrast to the connections created through the Edit

menu's Create function. Simple connections are not true elements but are useful for graphically representing connectivity. They can be selected and deleted, but cannot be copied, pasted, or managed. Simple connections inherit the color of the element to which they belong (that is, the connected-to element). Selecting an element also highlights its simple connections; however, connections cannot be moved.

To connect two glyphs, click SELECT on one of them. Move the mouse pointer over the other glyph and choose the Glyph >> Connect option. As an example, using two elements called doctest and blackberry136, the connection will be drawn as shown in Figure 14-14 on page 14-31. To delete the connection created by using this feature, click SELECT on the connection, then click SELECT the Edit >> Delete option.

Figure 14-14

14.10.11 Change Type

Change Type allows you to change the element type of a component. Change Type displays a submenu that allows you to select a new component element type. Pull right to the desired element type and release the menu button. The

glyph changes to reflect the glyph that is associated with the new element type. Figure 14-15 shows the Change Type pop-up window that allows you to change an element type.

Figure 14-15

When an element type is changed, in some cases not all of the element data fields for the previous element type can be copied over to the new element type. In this case, appropriate warnings are logged in the Error Reports window.

14.10.12 Auto Manage Off

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Note - This menu option appears if you enable automatic node management in the Console Properties window. Refer to "Automatic Management" in Chapter 17, "Props Menu," for more information on this feature.

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If automatic node management is enabled, automatic requests are launched for all elements that support at least one of the agents associated with automatic requests. Selecting the Auto Manage Off option, shown in Figure 14-16, specifies that no automatic requests are launched for the element or view. Any active automatic requests for the element or view are killed. Once you choose the Auto Manage Off option, the menu option changes to Auto Manage On. You can use the Auto Manage On option to toggle automatic node management back on for the element or view.

Figure 14-16

If the element is a bus or a view, the Auto Manage Off option prevents and kills automatic requests for elements contained in the bus or view. You can toggle automatic management on for individual elements in the view by choosing the Auto Manage On option in the Glyph menu for the element.

Starting with version 2.3 of SunNet Manager, you can use automatic management to launch a predefined event request or chain of requests for specific components. See Chapter 17, "Props Menu," for more information.