User`s guide

9032585 E1 The User Interface
3-5
The RingView Tools Dialog Box
Display Settings
The Discovery Device area at the bottom of the Discovery Options panel
provides a scrollable list of all the devices known to be collected by the
currently selected LAN_802_5 model. The icon to the right of the list is the
currently selected “discovery device,” i.e., the one that the next RingView
discovery session will attempt to use to map the ring. You can select a
different discovery device by clicking on one of the entries in the Possible
Devices list and then clicking the OK button immediately below. (Clicking
Cancel deselects a highlighted entry.) Note that the Selected Device icon
functions the same way as a device icon in a Topology view, showing current
condition status and providing double-click or Icon Subviews menu access to
associated views.
Display Settings
The Display Settings panel at the bottom of the dialog box lets you
customize the associated Topology view using the following three selector
buttons.
Display Mode This button lets you choose between a non-editable
RingView mode and an editable Normal mode.
In RingView mode, the display is governed by the
RingView software and will show only entities that
have been determined to be part of the ring (i.e., no
Off-Page Reference icons will appear). Note also
that the display is locked. This means that the
NOTE
As noted in Chapter 2, there is a fundamental incompatability between the
ways in which RingView and DECnet treat MAC addresses. RingView’s basic
mapping methodology depends on the MAC address being used as a constant
and unique node identifier. However, the MAC address of a DECnet station
may change whenever the DECnet protocol is started or restarted. Thus
RingView may encounter both an orignal MAC address and a DECnet-
assigned MAC address for the same station. Also the same MAC address
may be used for each of a DECnet station’s interfaces.
To deal with the problem of a station’s address changing, RingView will
automatically default the Prevent AutoDiscovery setting to “Yes” whenever a
DECnet MAC address is detected. You can then run RingView on-demand at
a time when the network is known to be stable.
The problem of duplicate MAC addresses requires some user action. If the
LAN_802_5 Topology view resulting from an initial AutoDiscovery session
contains wrong or duplicate DECnet MAC address models, you will need to
determine which one actually represents the device, then erase the others
from the view. The correct model will now be associated with the Token Ring
LAN through SPECTRUM’s “Collects” relation, and a subsequent session of
RingView will be able to accurately map the ring topology.