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1991-03-16
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NetCure, The Beholder and Other Stories,
Dear reader, let me first introduce you to the background of the
story. My name is Jan, and for the past three years, I have tried to
manage a research project funded by the Technical University Delft in
the Netherland, Europe. Apart from resulting in many graduate students
getting their degree, some articles, us celibrating in the Pub "De
Kurk" and a lot of fun,
one of the fruits of this research on computer network
performance is NetCure, or it's latest incarnation, The Beholder.
NetCure is a set of programs for the PC, Intel-based, environment.
This must be hard for the pure Unix Users,
and I know a lot of you Unix Managers are going to stop
reading, but think of the cost of a PC and the cost of a
Unix System. If you have to put a Unix Box on every segment of
your ethernet, you will be broke. But a PC .... , they're
not worth much anyway, now are they ?????
NetCure uses standard PC equipment, with a standard ethernet-card.
Furthermore you should have the standard "public-domain" packet-driver
for your ethernet-card. This software takes care of all the
network hardware details, it is beautiful software.
Main reason for building NetCure was the Fun Of It. It's
interrupt-driven, real-time, has it's own message-driven operating system, is
expandable. It's great ! It furthermore does the following things:
- reports the packet-length distribution
- reports the packet-type distribution
- reports the network-load
- reports the station top ten
- makes dumps of selected packets
- displays dumps in a formatted way.
But after we had created NetCure we saw that it wasn't perfect, so we
started to create The Beholder. This is in every aspect the better of
NetCure. It can still do what NetCure can but:
- Can report it's findings using SNMP
- Can transport dumps using TFTP
- Has got a full UDP/IP stack
- supports multiple ethernet-cards
Negative points of The Beholder are:
- It is still a beta-test version
- It still is PC based
- It still is Free !!
We are looking for persons who want to be Beta-Site for the Beholder.
We have got some simple Unix tools to collect the network-load data
from multiple Beholders on your network. Think of it, every
segment of your network connected to a Beholder on a PC you were not
using anyway !!! You can see the load on each segment through the
day, see who the bad guys were, make management graphics of your
findings and kill your free time. All from Your Favorite Unix
WorkStation or MainFrame.
A Q&A Game
----------
Q:--> Why don't you have normal documentation
A: We have tons of it, but all technical. NetCure
is usable because of it's user-friendly
interface (Thanks Ling), and not because of
it's documentation. The Beholder can be used
because you can reach it through SNMP. The
management environment should be user
friendly. We are developing tools, not books.
If there is anyone out there who want's to write
manuals for NetCure and the Beholder ... ,
he/she must be a better person then we are.
Q:--> Why isn't NetCure UNIX based
A: Because we didn't have money to buy a real
Unix machine when we started.
Q:--> Can I get the source code
A: Yes, if you can convince me
(JPMvOorschot@et.tudelft.nl) that you are
serious, and not just a source-code freak. We
want people to improve The Beholder, and build
new applications.
Q:--> Can I help The People That Made The Beholder
A: No ....... Just kidding, send us bug reports,
users' needs, wishes and birthday cards.
But Be Technical !!!!!!!!!!!!
Some Names
-----------
Ling Thio --> User interface and first version of
NetCure.
Wim van Campen --> UDP/IP Stack
Dirk Wisse --> SNMP library and debugging, Beholder Applics
Alfred Kayser--> Bugs and optimisation
Kees and Wil--> First Version of the Source/Destination
Matrix
Marc vd Linde --> Sun NetManager tools
Jan van Oorschot -> What can I say, he's great
John Babacom Lee -> My AD&D ranger
Bert Meijs -> System Manager
Installation
------------
The installation of NetCure is simple.
* Get a standard PC with a standard ethernet card. We use
the Western Digital cards, they are cheap and perform
well. As for the PC, anything slower that a 12 Mhz
286 won't be able to catch all packets flying by.
* Install your packet-driver
--> this process is documented in the
packet-driver distribution. It consists of
installing the packet-driver in a free
interrupt vector between 0x60 and 0x80, and
informing it of the I/O address, its IRQ and
its RAM address. Once installed, NetCure and
The Beholder will find it automaticaly.
NetCure only supports one interface at a
time.
To monitor ethernet:
* Start NetMon. This is done by typing "netmon" in the
command line. If everything is all right, you will get
a full-screen windowed environment. Press enter again
and the monitor will start
To capture ethernet frames:
* Start NetCapt. Choose filters etc. and dump frames to a
file. Use NetView to take a look at the capture-file.
The Future
----------
We keep developing the Beholder. NetCure is a finished project as far
as we are concerned. You can have it, it is very valuable. We use it
almost every day.
The Beholder's final version will be ready in a few months. This
version will include:
- A nice flashy window interface (killable)
- A full source/destination matrix
- Unix tools to collect data
- SunNetManager interface (agent or SNMP-based)
- more
Versions of the Beholder will be available in the mean time.
Let us know if you are using NetCure of The Beholder, it won't cost
you anything !
Greetings from the cheapest Dutch Network Software Development Team:
Jan van Oorschot
JPMvOorschot@et.tudelft.nl
P.S. You use NetCure and The Beholder at your own risk. We don't
take any responsibility for the correct operation or use of
any of our products. Use them wisely, and they will be valuable,
do not and you will suffer.
Life is hard, and then you die.