Copyright: John Rahn 1997


.BAT

You will find several files in your Ras N' Map directory named  ??.bat.    These are MS-DOS batch files Ras N' Map uses to get detailed information from Windows.  The same information is available without using the batch files, but using these techniques would add about 100k to the rasnmap.exe program.  These batch files are mainly used for the net commands such as net use and ipconfig.  If the following files are not in your Ras N' Map directory, Ras N' Map will not correctly display net information:

ac.bat

ip.bat

sbat.bat

sr.bat

ss.bat

sv.bat

us.bat

wk.bat

ws.bat


.MDB

 The rasnmap.mdb file is a MS ACCESS '97 database.  It contains all of the information for your machines, passwords, shares, etc.  You can open and work with it in MS ACCESS '97 or better.


Access - MS

.MDB


Accounts

The menu option Network|Accounts gives general information on how the accounts on your NT machine are set up.


Config Server and Workstation

The menu option Network|Config|Server gives information on how the server service is configured on your station.  Some information you would get is as follows:

Server Name

Server Comment

Software version

Server is active on  ??

Server hidden

Maximum Logged On Users

Maximum open files per session

Idle session time (min)

The menu option Network|Config|Workstation gives information on how the workstation service is configured on your station.  Some information you would get is as follows:

Computer name

User name

Workstation active on

Software version

Workstation domain

Logon domain

COM Open Timeout (sec)

COM Send Count (byte)

COM Send Timeout (msec)


contents

Ras N' Map BETA  This program is a pre-release beta copy and this help file is not a completed document.  Get http://www.concentric.net/~johnrahn/rasnmap.zip every Monday morning for the latest version.  The final version 1.0 is scheduled for 29SEP97.

Thank you for using Ras N' Map.  The copy you are using is a beta copy, and is free for you to use as long as you like.  No warranties of any kind are offered.  I suggest that you backup your database (rasnmap.mdb) after the addition of large amounts of data.  If the database becomes corrupt, you will have a good copy to fall back on.

HELP ME!  I want this program to be as good as possible, and to meet the needs of all who use it.  Any and all comments are welcome.  If you encounter any errors, crashes, things that don't make sense, or want to see something in the program that is not there or not planned to be there, let me know.  johnrahn@cris.com.

.BAT

.MDB

Access - MS

Accounts

Config Server and Workstation

Error Codes

extended.exe

HELP

IP Config

MAP

Network

planned

Printers

Ras Dial

Send Message

Services

Statistics Server and Workstation

TIME

User

View

Volume Utilities


Error Codes

The menu option Network|Error Codes gives can help you in troubleshooting various error messages generated from the 32bit Windows environment.  Most are NT specific, and should not be translated to Windows '95 error codes by the end user.  If you select this option, a box will come up where you can type in your error code number.  Ras N' Map will then search its own error codes and provide you with the information it has on that code.


extended.exe

The file extended.exe included with Ras N' Map is required for processing disk/volume information.  It's contents are what you see when you view extended information from Ras N' Map.  You can't run it directly.  If you delete this file, Ras N' Map will not run correctly, especially when you try to view extended disk information.  The purpose for placing the code for extended information in a separate .exe was that the extended code is hot, that is it looks for disk information constantly to speed up the process.  Many of the "back doors" I had to take to accomplish this were not compatible with the rest of the Ras N' Map program within the same program.  Therefore, I simply call the extended.exe program and pass along parameters to it to compute and display disk information.


HELP

The above picture is on the help button.  It is what may have brought you to this help file (rasnmap.hlp).  There are other ways to get to help.  For example, you can press the F1 button on your keyboard at any time to get help.


IP Config

The menu option Network|IP Config can give you the following information about your machine:

Host Name

DNS Servers

Node Type

NetBIOS Scope ID

IP Routing Enabled

WINS Proxy Enabled

NetBIOS Resolution Uses DNS :

Adapter Information

Description

Physical Address

DHCP Enabled

IP Address

Subnet Mask

Default Gateway


MAP

You can map a drive or several drives using two methods.

Only machines that belong to your current group will be mapped given any of the following scenarios.  At no time will Ras N' Map map all selected drives in your entire database.

Mapping Several Drives At Once

When you click on the button with the above icon, Ras N' Map will begin to map all drives you have put a checkmark or and X next to.  You much select at least one machine for this to work.  You will be notified of any errors mapping drives.  After Ras N' Map is finished mapping the machines you selected, a window will appear displaying all network drives on the left and physical drives on the right.  This is called the Volume Utilities window.

You can also map all selected machine at once by selecting the menu option MAP|ALL CHECKED MACHINES or by using the CTRL-M keyboard sequence.

Mapping Single Drives Even If They Are Not Checked

Given the case where you only want to map one drive to one resource, it is usually faster for you to use the menu option MAP|(number of the machine).  This will allow you to map to a machine without changing the database and is faster for you keyboard wizards.


Network

The Network Button/Menu item has the following options:

Accounts

Config Server and Workstation

Error Codes

IP Config

Printers

Send Message

Services

Statistics Server and Workstation

TIME

User

View


planned

The following are planned to be included/fixed in the final version:

1.0

1. More tools/actions to perform on drives.

2. Eliminate "Error, please select a NETWORK DRIVE to delete." message when deleting the first drive in the list.

3. Ability to delete multiple resources.

2.0

( plannedBy end of 09/97)

1. A full blown RAS dialer and manager.

2. Import your rasphonebook into the database.

3. Single clicking to make a ras connection and map resources.

See also the todo.txt file provided with this program.


Printers


Ras Dial

contents

You can start a Remote Access session with Ras N' Map.  There are several ways to do this,

but all of them are started throught the menu item Ras|Dial or RAS Dial button, which looks like this:

Depending on the options you have preset in the menu item "Ras", clicking the RAS Dial button will do one of three things:

1. Dial the number you have keyed in to Ras N Map for the current group.

2. Open the RAS phone book and go to the nearest entry in the phonebook that meets the current Ras N' Map group.  It may take Ras N' Map several seconds to tell the RAS Phonebook which entry to go to depending on how big your phonebook is.  Also, if you try closing the RAS phonebook before Ras N' Map figures out which entry to go to, Ras N' Map may open another copy of the phone book and try all over again.  So, if you have seleted a Ras N' Map group called "Greenville Dental Center" and have an entry in the RAS phonebook called "Greenville Dental Center," the RAS phonebook will go to that entry.  However, if there is not an entry called "Greenville Dental Center," the phone book will go to the most similar entry or the very first alphabetical entry..

3. If you selected the Ras menu option "Ask Me," a window will come up asking you which of the above 2 options you wish to use.


Send Message

The menu option Network|Send Message can be used to send pop-up messages to other users on your network.  I don't know the complete variety of Operating Systems that will accept these messages, but I know that all current varieties of Windows NT will accept them.  The station(s) who you are sending the message to MUST HAVE THEIR MESSENGER SERVICE STARTED.   Depending on security, you may also be required to have some sort of existing access to the other machine(s).  Usually, mapping a drive to the other machine(s) will do the trick.  Keep in mind however, that they may restrict who can send messages to their machine over the network even if you have administrator access to their machine.

Popup messages sent with Ras N' Map can be much longer than those sent with the command line net send command.  They may, however, be limited to your network configuration.  If you plan on sending large messages (more than 5 lines in the Ras N' Map window), please take some time to test the results by sending messages to your own machine and network machines you have immediate access to.

There are two options for sending messages:

To Other

The To Other option enables you to send a pop-up message to any machine on your local and/or RAS network, provided the above conditions are met even if their machine is not in your Ras N' Map database.  Selecting the To Other option lets you type in the machine you want to send a message to.  You can send the same message to this machine up to three times at once.

To Selected

The To Selected option enables you to send a pop-up message to a single or multiple machines on your local and/or RAS network, provided the above conditions are met and their machine is in your Ras N' Map database. Selecting the To Selected option does not let you type in the machine you want to send a message to,  but automatically takes the machines you have selected from the current group and bring up another window that will let you send them a message.   You can send the same message to these machines up to three times at once.


Services


Statistics Server and Workstation

The menu option Network|Statistics|Server gives information on how your current server session is going, provided you have the server service started.  Some information you will see is as follows:

Server Statistics for \\machinename

Statistics since 8/11/97 3:16 AM   (Up Time)

Sessions accepted

Sessions timed-out

Sessions errored-out

Kilobytes sent

Kilobytes received

Mean response time (msec)

System errors

Permission violations

Password violations

Files accessed

Communication devices accessed

Print jobs spooled

Times buffers exhausted

 Big buffers

 Request buffers

The menu option Network|Statistics|Workstation gives information on how your current workstation session is going, provided you have the workstation service started.  Some information you will see is as follows:

Workstation Statistics for \\machinename

Statistics since 8/11/97 3:16 AM (Up Time)

  Bytes received

  Server Message Blocks (SMBs) received

  Bytes transmitted

  Server Message Blocks (SMBs) transmitted

  Read operations

  Write operations

  Raw reads denied

  Raw writes denied

  Network errors

  Connections made

  Reconnections made

  Server disconnects

  Sessions started

  Hung sessions

  Failed sessions

  Failed operations

  Use count

  Failed use count


TIME


User

 The menu option Network|User displays your current users.


View

The menu option Network|View displays advertising machines currently connected to your network.  NT has a nasty reputation for not being able to find all machines on your network all of the time, it even finds those that are not there,  so don't consider this to be a conclusive listing.  You should also find shared resources for each machine displayed.


Volume Utilities