// Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden,
•• What is ATMap ••
ATMap finds out your AppleTalk internets topology, and graphically displays it with your networks and routers. You can yourself set various icons to your routers and networks, and name routers (in some cases, ATMap will automatically set default icons and names to stuff).
ATMap can be used to show connectivity, find out where new routers/nets are, why a network cannot be reached, and similar network management stuff. It will take some initial work to get your map nice and clean. ATMap has been used on quite large internets (>200 nets), but you then need a large patience-budget to set up the map.
I hope that you will find ATMap useful.
NOTE: Use ATMap only with System 6.0.7 or higher.
•• Getting started ••
The best way of getting your map arranged is probably to let ATMap run for a while to let it find all your routers and networks. You can see how it works its way through your nets in your internet at the network counter in the lower left corner.
In the mean time, to help you setting up the graphical map, try to get an idea of how your internet looks, what network numbers and zones there are out there, what routers you have and what you names they might have, and such.
You probably want to turn on "Faster Drawing" in the "Special" menu by now. This will make drawing faster which is good now when you are going to move stuff around. Though, you will not as easy see if a line passing by an item on the screen ends at the item or not (you can reed more about this below).
When ATMap has run for a while, or whenever you think it is appropriate, switch off "Run" (lower left corner of window) to let you place your items undisturbed.
Start with placing for example the routers (since routers can have informative names). Try to get them placed on the screen as they are topologically oriented.
Now place the networks. NOTE: Press the command key while moving a single item - this will make it move with the connection lines drawn - really makes finding their way home easier (command-option-drag while moving is a little faster but uglier).
If you find strange things on the map, read the "Trouble shooting - or - Strange behavior explanation" section below.
•• Explanation of the information on the screen ••
•• ATMap commands ••
• Routers:Show Names, Show Registered Names and Show Numbers commands
Enables displaying of user-set names, Name Binding Protocol names, and network/node numbers, respectively
• Routers:Connections Showed command
Some routers, such as the GatorBox, and the Shiva FastPath with option 25 off, sometimes consider themselves directly connected to more networks than they really are. See more about this in "README to make ATMap useful". You can use this command to hide the connections that are redundant information.
• Routers:Name Router command
You can yourself set names to routers. If no name is set, ATMap will set a default one from the routers registered names, if any.
• Routers/Networks:Set Icon commands
You can yourself set various icons to your networks and routers. Though, ATMap sometimes sets icons and/or names automatically (see below).
• Networks:Show Zones, Show Numbers
These commands enables displaying of zones and network numbers respectively
• Clear command
Use "Clear" to get rid of networks and routers. For example, since the only way a router is identified is by its set of directly connected networks, ATMap will consider a router that has changed configuration as a completely new one (if it hasn't recently talked to it, and the change is only added interface(s)). "Clear" the extra router. This way of matching will be improved in future versions of ATMap.
• Faster Drawing
In this mode, drawing is faster, and sometimes less informative. You will not as easy see if a line passing by an item on the screen ends at the item or not. This can be confusing. This is also the mode currently used when printing, since the LaserWriter can't clip to non-rectangular quickdraw regions.
• Simplified placing of items
When moving a single network or router, you can press the command key to move it with the connection lines drawn. This makes it a lot easier to find its way to its adjacent items. (Pressing command-option while moving makes feedback drawing faster but uglier)
•• What graying means ••
Routers, networks and connections can be gray or black, which displays reachability. Black means that the item is reachable and ATMap has heard from it recently.
•• Automatic icon and name setting ••
Networks that are first discovered to be Phase-2 networks will automatically get a EtherTalk Phase 2 icon. Other networks will get a generic network icon.
Routers will get a default router icon and no name. If ATMap later discovers that the router has registered a Name Binding Protocol entry (NVE) with a type that it recognizes (see Recognized router types below), it will set the icon according to the type and the name from that NVE.
If it doesn't recognize any NVE type, it will take the name from the NVE that has the most non-numerical characters.
•• How ATMap works ••
ATMap polls for different information on each network in the order of network numbering. It finds routers with the AppleTalk Phase 2 extensions RTMP Request and RTMP Route Request. It does this for several networks in parallel for speed, but not to many not to eat up all network bandwidth and memory. (ATMap knows nothing about what throughput you have on your lines.) You can read more about how it works in the file "Tech descr of ATMap".
•• Trouble shooting - or - Strange behavior explanation ••
NOTE: Network topology is found out using RTMP. How routers should respond to requests sent from remote networks is not really specified. Though, most routers do respond as can be expected. Since different routers answers differently on RTMP requests, some routers may not be found or may not display in a correct manner. Use the latest software available for your router.
• Routers seems to be connected to more nets than expected
Some routers indicate they are. See "Connections Showed command" above.
• Small network islands
If you end up with small network islands that does not seem to have any connectivity to the rest of the network, although you obviously reach them, it is probably because you run some "AppleTalk tunneling" such as AppleTalk in UDP/IP. This is because the IP tunneling between the routers is not considered as a logical AppleTalk network - it is done behind AppleTalk's ordinary RTMP routing's back.
• Single net islands
A single network that does not seem to be connected to anything at all can either be a real network that really is connected to the internet, but the connected router is either not Phase-2 compatible or does not allow RTMP requesting from distance networks. It can also be some old or bad not yet removed route from a router with a buggy implementation of the routing table maintenance, such as the old KIP code. If the network sometimes turns black, there probably is at least something asking to the ECHO packet on it.
• No routers appears at all
Either you have no connected router, or your local router does not respond to RTMP requests. Get new Phase-2 compatible software. As a work around, you can also start a new ATMap document on a network where there is known to be Phase-2-compatible router. When using this document later, ATMap will find your networks.
• An extra router on that GatorBox-connected UDP-Talk network
The GatorBox can respond on the UDP-Talk network as if it is a router with only one connection. ATMap will see this as a new router. You'll have to live with this, or convince me that I should make some work around.
• My Cisco only gets the node address on one network
The Cisco router (Software v8.2(6)) replies for RTMP requests sent to ITS interfaces THROUGH it, as if the request was sent to the interface that the request received through. This means that you will only get the node number for the Cisco interface closest to yourself.
• My two identically configured routers gets mixed up
If you have two identically configured routers - they are connected to exactly the same nets -, ATMap will not as of this version try to identify and distinguish between them on the different interfaces. ATMap may, and probably will, mix up network addresses and any names.
•• Recognized router types ••
ATMap currently matches the following Name Binding Protocol types from routers to icons: CiscoRouter, AppleRouter, GatorBox, FastPath. It will as a default name use the name associated with that type. If neither of those are found, it will look for the type SNMP, and use that name, but don't set an icon. Icons and NVE types should, of course, be user-configurable, and maybe it will.
•• Send me your icons and types ••
If you have a router NBP type that you think that ATMap should recognize, please do send me some information about the router's registered types, and maybe a good icon, and I will incorporate it in later versions of ATMap.
•• Send me comments and tell me about any problems ••
If you have some trouble with using ATMap, please let me know. I'll be happy to try to solve your problems, especially if it can improve ATMap.
•• Thanks to ••
Claus Kalle, University of Koeln, Germany
Ben (B.T.) Schmidt, BNR, Canada
for testing and helping me find some bugs
•• Revision history ••
0.1b4
First release.
0.1b5
Now finds routers even on a new document.
Correctly handles multi-zoned networks.
Correct handling of multi-packet RTMP response.
0.1b5.4
Faster, especially on large networks.
Sets names and icons on routers.
"Clear" of a router does not occasionally lead to a crash.
Network polling can be turned off.
Progress information box.
Stupid distribution of discovered items.
0.1b6
Works on 68000 based machines.
Works with System 6.0.7.
Faster Drawing mode.
Move single item with connections drawn mode.
0.1b7
Now really Works on 68000 based machines.
Fixed a bug causing some routers to be duplicated.
Fixed a socket listener bug that could corrupt incoming packets.
