FREEping Installation and User Guide

Transcription

1 FREEping Installation and User Guide Tools4ever Hermesweg GP Baarn Version 1.6 (c) Tools4ever

2 1. Contents 1. Contents Introduction Installation Hardware and Software Requirements Installing FREEping Upgrading FREEping Removing FREEping Using FREEping Adding a host to FREEping Changing the parameters for an Internet host Deleting a host from FREEping Results of FREEping Other options More information...10 Tools4ever Page 2 of 10

3 2. Introduction Do you want to know if all your Windows NT Servers are alive and pinging? Do you want to receive a popup message when one if them is not up and running anymore? Start to use FREEping. It s all in the name: FREEping is a free ping utility which will ping all your NT servers (or any other IP address) in free-definable intervals. FREEping will send you a popup message when one the NT servers doesn t respond anymore. FREEping can work in the background, so you can concentrate on other important work. Do you also want to know how quick all your NT servers are responding to the ping? Take a look at the FREEping overview window to view all important statistics. You may ask yourself now: why is Tools4ever giving away such a valuable utility for free? We have two reasons: 1. The mission of Tools4ever is to make life of NT sysadmins easier and save much of your valuable time. That s just what FREEping can do for you. 2. We want you to know that we provide four other NT tools, which can also assist you in having your NT network up and running and save much time. Here s a quick overview of our other NT tools: The disk quota management tool SpaceGuard. SpaceGuard is loaded with functionality and has the best price/performance. The user & server management tool Network ServaNT. Network ServaNT integrates User Manager for Domains, Server Manager, File Manager and the Event Viewer into one userfriendly tool. It also adds some features not included into the Windows NT management tools, like managing NT Workstations, printing, exporting, drag and drop functionality and configuring multiple objects with just one click of your mouse. You can even integrate your own scripts and batch files into the GUI of Network ServaNT. The user management tool UserManagemeNT. This tool will drastically save the amount of time you are currently spending on creating users, moving users, deleting users, resetting passwords, disabling accounts etc. The frontend of UserManagemeNT is so simple, it can even be used by a trainee. You just has to fill in a few blanks and click on the OK button. The complexity is behind the screens. Customizable scripts will create userids, passwords, home directories, group memberships and so on. The Policy Template Editor. This tool will help you to save valuable time on creating or customizing Policy Template Files. Do you want to know more about our NT tools? You can find all the info you need, including downloads, on our website You can also send us an to sales@tools4ever.com and we will point you to your nearest distributor. Tools4ever Page 3 of 10

4 3. Installation The installation process of the FREEping utility is very simple and straightforward. The installation process only takes a few minutes. It is also very easy to remove the FREEping software completely from your system. 3.1 Hardware and Software Requirements FREEping operates on the following operating systems: Windows NT Server and Workstation, Intel, Version 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 5.0 Windows NT Server and Workstation, Alpha, Version 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 5.0 Windows 95 Minimum recommended hardware requirements: Processor: Pentium 75 MHz Memory: 16 MB RAM Disk space: 1 MB 3.2 Installing FREEping FREEping is available from a self-extracting executable file, floppy disks or CD-ROM. You can always download the most recent version from the Tools4ever WEB site: To install FREEping, logon to the computer and continue with the following procedure: 1. If installing from floppy disk, insert the FREEping diskette into the floppy drive and run the A:\SETUP.EXE. Proceed with step If installing from CD-ROM, insert the CD-ROM. When the autorun feature is enabled, a setup application is started automatically. Select the FREEping setup option. When the autorun feature is not enabled, go to the FREEping program directory and start the SETUP.EXE application. Proceed with step When installing from a self-extracting executable, simply start the executable. The name for this executable is FREEPING.EXE for the Intel platform, and FREEPNGA.EXE for the Alpha platform. 4. A welcome message shows up. Follow the onscreen instructions for installation. 3.3 Upgrading FREEping To install a new version of FREEping, follow the procedure as described in section Installing FREEping. The FREEping setup application will detect previous installations of FREEping automatically and upgrade the installed software. 3.4 Removing FREEping To remove FREEping from your desktop, start the Control Panel and select the option Add/Remove programs. Select the FREEping entry from the list of installed programs and press on the Add/Remove button. Follow the instructions on the screen. Tools4ever Page 4 of 10

5 4. Using FREEping Using FREEping is simple and straightforward. With FREEping you configure a number of TCP/IP hosts. The FREEping utility will send echo requests ( ping ) to these hosts on repeated intervals. The response times and other information is displayed in a graphical user-interface. When the hosts become unavailable, FREEping can send popup messages (Windows NT Server and Workstation only). When you start FREEping for the first time, the localhost (your machine, IP-address ) is preconfigured for your convenience. FREEping will display if the localhost is reachable or not. The different columns in the window show information regarding the response times of each particular host. 4.1 Adding a host to FREEping To test if an Internet host is reachable, you must add the host to FREEping. You can add any Internet host or any other machine or device with a TCP/IP address. To add the host, select menu option Host, Add, or press on the Add host button of the FREEping toolbar. A dialog shows up (see screenshot on the next page). In this dialog, you need to specify the settings for the new host to add to FREEping. The dialog contains the specification how to reach the host together with the results of the same host. After adding a new host, the results are empty since there are no results for a new host. The following section describes the entries of the dialog: Host Packet size Ping timeout Ping success period The address of the host to add. This can be a DNS name or an address in the decimal dot notation. Examples of valid addresses are and The size in bytes of the data send by FREEping in a single echo request. The default size is 32 bytes. The echo request timeout value in seconds. When FREEping sends an echo request, it starts waiting for a response packet. If a response is not received within a specific time, FREEping assumes that the remote host did not respond within this time. A time out event is generated. For FREEping, a host has one of three possible reachability status values: 1. reachable 2. not reachable Tools4ever Page 5 of 10

6 3. unknown. When a host is reachable it is very well possible that a single ping fails, but the next ping is successful. In this case, the host is still reachable but for some reason a single echo response was not received. It makes sense to assume that the host is still reachable and the status should not change from reachable to not reachable. To deal with this situation, the Ping success period and Ping fail period is introduced. When consecutive pings fails for a period longer then the Ping fail period, FREEping marks the host as unreachable. When an initially unreachable host correctly responses to pings for a period longer then the Ping success period, FREEping marks the host as reachable. In between, the status of the host is unknown. So, when a host is reachable and a ping fails, the status changes to unknown. When all pings fail for a period longer than the Ping fail period the status becomes unreachable. After a successful ping is received, the status changes back to unknown. Ping fail period: Repeat ping every: Destination: Message: When successful pings are sent and received for a period longer than the Ping success period, the status changes back to reachable. See Ping success period for more information. The number of seconds that must elapse before the next ping echo request is sent. The NT address of the user of machine that must receive a popup message, when the host becomes available. This option is available on Windows NT Server and Workstation only. If no Destination is specified, no popup message is sent. The message sent when an Internet host becomes unreachable. If no Destination is specified, no popup message is sent. Press OK to add the host to FREEping. The newly added host is displayed in a single line in the main window of FREEping. FREEping starts sending echo requests to the host immediately. All echo requests are sent in background tasks. So you can continue working with FREEping while background tasks are waiting for responses. You can for instance immediately add another host to FREEping. Once you have added a host to FREEping, the parameters for this host are stored in the FREEping configuration file FREEping.ini. Next time you start up FREEping, the host is automatically added. Tools4ever Page 6 of 10

7 4.2 Changing the parameters for an Internet host If you want to change some or all parameter settings of a host, you simply double-click on the host. You can also select the host and select menu option Host, Edit, or press on the Edit host button of the FREEping toolbar. The same dialog as with Add host shows up. This time, also the results are shown in the dialog. See paragraph 4.4 for more information on the results shown in the dialog. To change specific settings for the host, simply change the values in the dialog and press the OK button. To discard changes, press the Cancel button. See section Adding a host to FREEping for more information on the individual parameters. Changes made in the parameters of a host are stored in the FREEping configuration file FREEping.ini. 4.3 Deleting a host from FREEping To delete a host from FREEping, select the host to delete and select menu option Host, Delete or press the Delete host button of the FREEping toolbar. The host will be deleted from FREEping. This is also stored in the FREEping configuration file FREEping.ini. 4.4 Results of FREEping FREEping shows the results in a single window. For each host, is single line is shown. The line contains the address of the host name and the ping results for this host. The most important results are shown in the various columns of the window. If you double-click with the left mouse button on an host, detailed information for this host, together with all available results, are shown in the Ping data dialog. Tools4ever Page 7 of 10

8 The following section describes all of the result parameters: Status The current reachability status of the host. This can be either OK, WARNING or ERROR. If the status is OK, the host is reachable for a period longer then the specified Ping success rate. If the status is ERROR, the host is not reachable for a period longer then the Ping fail period. In between, the status of the host is WARNING. The status corresponds with the color of the flag at the beginning of each line: - green flag: reachable; - orange/yellow flag: reachability status not known - red flag: not reachable Current response time The last response time of the host of a successful echo request. Minimum response time: The minimum response time of all echo requests responses received. Max. response time: The maximum response time of all echo requests responses received. Avg. reponse time: The average response time of all echo requests reponses received. Pings sent: The total number of pings sent, during the current session. Pings received: The total number of pings received, during this session. Pings failed: The total number of pings that were sent but no response was received during this session. Ping success rate: The ping success rate, calculated as the fraction of received pings of the number of pings sent. Error: A description of the last ping error that occurred with this host. If nothing is displayed, no error occurred. From these result parameters, the FREEping window shows the following columns: 1. Host 2. Current response time (Delay ms) 3. Pings sent (Sent) 4. Ping success rate (% OK) 5. Minimum response time (Min.resp(ms)) 6. Average response time (Avg.resp(ms)) 7. Maximum response time (Max.resp(ms)) 8. Error You can sort the hosts in the FREEping window on each of these columns by clicking on the column header field. The sort direction is reversed after clicking on the same column header field again. Tools4ever Page 8 of 10

9 4.5 Other options To reset the results of all host, press the Reset results button in the FREEping toolbar, or select menu option Host, Reset results. The result parameters of all hosts are changed to the values when the host was first added. To exit FREEping, select menu option Host, Exit. Note: When you exit FREEping, all FREEping tasks must exit before the FREEping application can terminate. If echo requests are pending, this may take some time. This is because each echo request is serviced by a separate background task. Do not try to kill the FREEping application the hard way, although this will work as well. Instead, let it end gracefully. Tools4ever Page 9 of 10

10 5. More information If you have any questions or comments on FREEping or any other of our NT tools, please contact us. You can send us an message, or you can visit our WEB-site, even directly from the FREEping utility. Simply select the menu option Help, or Help, or press the corresponding buttons on the FREEping toolbar. This will start your favorite application or Internet Browser. Tools4ever Page 10 of 10