E XERCISE 1

N ET V IEW 7.1.2
I NSTALLATION & C ONFIGURATION
D URATION 2 HOURS

Pam Geiger
P&A Technical Evangelist
Tivoli Software, IBM SWG

Version 1.0
Last Update: 10 Aug 2002
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

This document is the sole property of IBM. No part of this document may be reproduced in any
form or by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the
prior written permission of IBM.

Page 2
1 . Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s
Exercise 1.......................................................................................................................................1
NetView 7.1.2.................................................................................................................................1
Installation & Configuration.......................................................................................................1
Duration 2 hours ..........................................................................................................................1
1. Table of Contents........................................................................................................................3
2. Document History.......................................................................................................................4
3. Introduction................................................................................................................................5
4. Product Installation....................................................................................................................6
4.1. Installation Prerequisites for NetView..............................................................................6
4.1.1. For this exercise, Framework 3.71 and ITEC 3.8 have already been installed..............6
4.1.2. Install NetView..............................................................................................................6
4.2. Customize NetView...........................................................................................................10
4.2.1. Customize Display Preferences...................................................................................10
4.3. Customize the Topology Display.....................................................................................11
4.3.1. Add a new location to the submap...............................................................................11
4.4. Smartsets............................................................................................................................14
4.4.1. Create a Smartset.........................................................................................................14
4.5. Basic customization...........................................................................................................19
4.5.1. Adding Community Names.........................................................................................19
4.5.2. Customizing the Event Display ..................................................................................20
4.5.3. Loading MIBs..............................................................................................................21
4.5.4. Loading Traps..............................................................................................................23
4.6. Installing the NetView web console.................................................................................23
4.6.1. Download the web console..........................................................................................23
4.7. Create web userids............................................................................................................25
4.7.2. The netviewd daemon..................................................................................................28
5. Using the Web Console.............................................................................................................30
5.1. Start the Web Console......................................................................................................30
2. Document History

Date Change History

8 June 2011 Revision 1 of document submitted to teamroom
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

3. Introduction
Within this cookbook, we will cover the basics of how to install, configure, and administer NetView 7.1.2

Products and their location can be located in your system’s directory as follows:

NetView /usr/NV

Page 5
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

4 . P r o d u c t I n s t a l l a t io n
4.1. Installation Prerequisites for NetView
NetView can be installed as a standalone product or optionally via the Framework. If customers
want to use the optional relational database support, they will need to select the Framework option
as it uses RIM for the relational database support. However, for the purpose of this exercise and for
a Proof of Concept situation, I recommend a stand alone installation. The TEC integration is
supported in either configuration. Since we are going to be installing Switch Analyzer, we will be
installing on the AIX platform, as Switch Analyzer currently runs on AIX or Solaris only.
The IBM Tivoli NetView product will require AIX 4.3.3 Maintenance Level 4330-10. To check:
 instfix -ik 4330-10_AIX_ML
The response should indicate that all filesets for 4330-10 were found.
In addition, you need to ensure that the following optional aix components are installed (from AIX
installation media). To ensure that all prepreqs are installed, NetView has supplied a script that you
can run. To run the script: /usr/NV/TOOLS/Nvprereq.sh server it should confirm that all of the
prereqs have been installed.
 X11.compat
 X11.vfb
 bos.compat
 bos.sysmgmt.serv_aid
 bos.loc.pc_compat.En_US (use smit mle_add_lang fast)
In addition, you will need:
 Filesystem /usr/OV of at least 600Mb (we have created this for you)

4.1.1. For this exercise, Framework 3.71 and ITEC 3.8 have already been installed.
4.1.2. Install NetView
a) From the aix command line, enter the following command:
/usr/NV/instalnv –k SERVER –d a –c “tivoli” -t itsax
Substituting your system number for the ‘x’
What this indicates is a fresh install of the NetView Server component, with a
discovery mode of ‘all’ , community name tivoli, and that
Events will be forwarded to a TEC server on host itsax.
b) Hit enter to begin the installation process.
c) When prompted to enter y/n to begin installation, enter y
d) The installation should take a few minutes to complete.

Page 6
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

See the screen print below for information on all available options:

Page 7
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

e) When the installation is complete, you should see messages about the
daemons starting. At this point, NetView is ready to begin discovering the
network. Since we have only a very small network, this should only take a few
minutes.
f) Enter ovstatus to verify that netview daemons are running. The output will
scroll over multiple pages, use ovstatus | pg to see it a page at a time:

Page 8
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

Page 9
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

i) Start the NetView Graphical interface by entering nv6000&

4.2. Customize NetView

4.2.1. Customize Display Preferences

One of the first things that you are probably going to want to do is customize the display to your
preferences. In this case, let’s close the tools window as well as the navigation tree.
a) To do this,simply double click the button in the top left corner of each
window. That will leave us with a single NetView window containing multiple
panes.
The next thing that we want to do is separate the Control Desk (containing the events) from the
topology display.
b) Put your mouse on top of the thin bar that says ‘Control Desk’ and hold down
the second mouse button until it turns into a desk. At this point, drag your
mouse and drop it where you would like to place the control desk. You should

Page 10
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

now have two separate windows, one with your topology and a second control
desk which contains the events application.

4.3. Customize the Topology Display

Now let’s focus on the topology display for awhile. Double click on the IP Internet Symbol to drill
down to see the devices that NetView has discovered. At this point we have done no customization,
so you are seeing how NetView lays the devices out by default. Most customers will customize this
view, so let’s take a look at how that is done.

4.3.1. Add a new location to the submap

In order to cutomize the submaps, you will need to add ‘location’ objects, or containers, to the
submaps to hold the customization.

a) On the NetView Topology window navigate to the highest level IP Topolgy

submap by double clicking on the IP Internet icon.
b) From the NetView Topology Display pulldown menus, select
Edit->Add->Object to add an object to the current submap.

Page 11
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

c) Find the symbol called location and select it by clicking on it.

d) Once you have selected the object, you will see the location types that are
available to add. Select one of these to be added to your submap and add it to
the IP submap. To add it to the map, click the second mouse button on it
and drag it to the submap window. Release the mouse button to add.
e) Type a name for this new location in the Label field (i.e. Raleigh).
f) Click OK on this panel and OK again on the Add Object panel. At this point
you should see the new object on the display. It will be blue since it’s status is
unknown.
g) Now you will need to select some objects to put in your new location. To select
objects, click the first mouse button on them. Use the CTRL key to select
multiple objects.

Page 12
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

h) Once you have selected the objects that you want to include, select
Edit->Cut From this submap to remove these symbols from the current
submap. You will be prompted to confirm this selection, select OK.

i) To add the symbols to your new location, double click your new location
object to open it. At this point you should see an empty submap.
j) Now select Edit->Paste to add the objects that you cut from the previous
submap. You can use this method to build a hierarchy of submps customized
as desired. You should also familiarize yourself with the /usr/OV/location.conf
file, which allows you to define your locations programmatically, allowing for
map customizations to be preserved and rebuilt when you regenerate your
NetView databases.

Page 13
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

4.4. Smartsets
Another area that you should become familiar with are Smartsets. Smartsets are unique to NetView
and allow customers to define dynamic views that can be used for Network management policies. For
example, your customer may want to set up polling for all of their file servers to check the disk space
at a regular interval, and send an event , page someone, or perform an automated action when a
certain threshold is exceeded. This task is simple to do with a Smartset. They simply create a smartest
for all of their file servers, then use the SNMP Data Collection function to set up the polling
frequency and threshold that they want to monitor for and apply it to that smartest. That action will be
applied to all members of the smartest, and since smartsets are dynamic, when new servers are added
they will automatically have the same policy applied.
4.4.1. Create a Smartset
a) From the Pull down menu, select Tools -> Smartset Editor
b) You’ll see a list of all of your existing smartsets. Click the Add button to add a
new one.

Page 14
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

c) At this point you will be presented with the graphical interface for adding a new
smartest. Fill in the name for your new smartest (i.e. Routers) and a
description of this smartset.
d) At this point, you need to specify the rules for inclusion in this smartset. As
you can see, it can include multiple rules that can be combined via AND and
OR. You can also combine existing smartsets in your rule to make them as
complex as necessary.

Page 15
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

e) For our simple rule, click the Modify button under Definition 1.

Page 16
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

f) You can take a look at the panels to get an idea of the type of information that
can be included in smartsets. The object attributes are all of the fields from the
NetView database that NetView has discovered about the devices that it is
managing. In this example we are creating a smartset of all routers, so scroll

Page 17
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

down until you find the isIPRouter field and select it.Make sure that the
Attribute Value at the bottom of this window indicates True.
g) Click OK on this panel to add the attribute definition and then OK to add the
new Smartset.

h) You should now see your new smartset listed. Click Close to close the
Smartset Editor.
i) Navigate back up to the Root submap by clicking the Root Map icon on the
left side of your topology display. Double click on the Smartsets icon to see all
of your smartset. Your new smartset should be there and will be Blue until it
has been opened.

Page 18
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

j) Double click on the Routers Smartset to open it. It should be populated with all
of the routers that are in NetViews database.

4.5. Basic customization

4.5.1. Adding Community Names
Let’s take a look at some of the basic customization procedures. When we installed NetView, we
supplied a set of community names that it will use to do it’s network discovery and polling. These
will work for this lab environment, but in a Proof of Concept situation it is likely that you may need
to add additional community names. If you do, there are a couple of options for doing this. The
easiest way is to add the community names that you want to use to those that are listed in the
communityNames.conf file. If NetView does not have a specific community name configured for a
device, or if the community name that is configured fails, then NetView will try all of the community
names that are listed in this file. It it finds one that works, it will update it’s configuration information
so that the next time it tries to speak to that device it will use the last successful community name.
Let’s add one to see how this works.
a) Open up the file (in /usr/OV/conf) with vi:
vi /usr/OV/conf/communityNames.conf

Page 19
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

b) You’ll notice the comments in this file specify the format. Scroll to the list of
community names that are there and add a new one: labcom:
i) Esc+i to insert (note that is the escape key followed by the letter ‘i’)
ii) Type in the new community name followed by a space
iii) Esc+wq! To write and quit (the escape key then the letter w, the letter
q and an !)

You have now successfully added the new community name. Note that community names for specific
devices or specific groups of devices can be configured as well through the GUI from the Options -> SNMP
Configuration selection.

4.5.2. Customizing the Event Display

A common request from users is that they prefer the events to be displayed in a ‘List’ format by
default. To change this default, do the following:
a) Change to the /usr/OV/app-defaults directory
cd /usr/OV/app-defaults
b) Edit the Nvevents file
vi Nvevents
c) Scroll down in this file until you find the line that says:
nvevents.initialPresCard : True
d) Change this value from True to False
Esc+xx to delete the current value
Esc+i to insert a new value
Type in the new value
Esc+ :wq! To write the changes to the file
e) Close your NetView console and restart it to see the change:
File-> Exit
Confirm the Exit

Page 20
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

nv6000& to restart the application

The events should now be in the list format rather than the card format

4.5.3. Loading MIBs

Most vendors of SNMP devices will create their own enterprise specific MIBs.This
allows them to provide management information that is specific to their device. In order
to get information from those enterprise specific MIBs, NetView needs to have the MIB
specification loaded. NetView comes with a number of the more common vendor MIBs
loaded, but it is not uncommon for you to come across SNMP equipment in a customer
environment whose MIB information has not been loaded. NetView provides a simple
way to add those vendor specific MIBs so that it can manage those devices more
effectively, the MIB Loader. To load a new MIB, you will need to have the MIB file in
the correct format. These are typically available from the vendors web site.

a) Select Tools-> Web Console MIB Loader

b) This will launch the new V1/V2 MIB Loader with a list of the currently loaded
MIBs. To load a new MIB, click the Load… button

Page 21
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

c) Navigate to the directory that holds the mib files. The mibs that are shipped
with NetView can be found in /usr/OV/snmp_mibs. The browser will start in
/usr/OV/ by default, so double click the snmp_mibs directory to open it.
d) Select a MIB to load from the list. Let’s select the ibm.readme mib file.Click
OK to load the MIB.

e) While the MIB is loading, you’ll see information about the progress.
f) When the MIB is successfully loaded, click OK to commit the changes.
g) Depending on the size of the MIB, the entire process should be very quick.
When the load is complete, you should be returned to the MIB Loader panel
with the newly loaded mib now listed under Loaded MIBs. Click Close to close
the MIB Loader.

Page 22
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

4.5.4. Loading Traps

A common incorrect assumption that users make when they load mibs is that the Vendor
specific trap information will be loaded as well. This is not the case. Loading the Trap
definitions is a separate process. If the trap definitions are not loaded, when NetView
receives a trap from one of these devices it will indicate that a trap with an unknown format
was received. To load the traps, the following procedure must be followed. Note that this
section is provided for your reference only. We will not be loading any traps during this
exercise:
a) For MIB files that contain trap definitions, run the mib2trap command against
the MIB definition file to extract the trap definition information and build a shell
script for adding the trap definitions to the /usr/OV/conf/C/trapd.conf file.
mib2trap <mib file> <output file> [<baroc file>]
Where mib file is the mib definition file, output file is the name of the shell
script that mib2trap will create, and baroc file is an optional output file
containing TEC baroc statements
b) Once mib2trap has completed successfully, run the output file to add the trap
definitions to the trapd.conf file. This defines the traps to NetVIew so that they
will be recognized when they are received.

4.6. Installing the NetView web console

4.6.1. Download the web console

There are two different options for viewing the NetView console via the web an applet version from a
browser, or from the web console java client. The browser interface is only recommended for the

Page 23
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

occasional user. For anyone who will be using the console on a regular basis, they should install the
NetView web console on their system. It is available as a download from the NetView server
machine. Point your browser to the netview server machine with the following url:
http://servername:8080/download/ replacing servername with the hostname of your lab system.

NetView web console downloads

 nvwcinstall.exe is the Windows NV Web Console

 nvwc_aix_jre_1_3.tar is the AIX “thick” client
 nvwc_linux_jre_1_3.tar is the Linux “thick” client
 nvwc.tar is the Unix “thin” client
 nvwc.thin.zip is the Windows “thin” client

The thin clients are for installing on systems where Java 1.3 is already installed.To achieve TEC ->
NetView integration, you must install a “thick” client. Once the appropriate file is downloaded it
should be executed (nvwcinstall.exe) or untar’ed (Unix). Tar versions will untar relative to the
current directory and the nvwc shellscript will be under the bin subdirectory.

Page 24
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

a) For this exercise, download nvwc_aix_jre_1_3.tar by selecting that link.

b) When prompted for the directory to save to, enter /usr/OV/

c) When the download completes, you should see the tar file in the directory the
directory that you specifed for download.
d) To install the web console, simply untar this file with the following command:

tar –xvf nvwc_aix_jre_1_3.tar

This will extract the files and install the web console to the directory that you
specified above. The shell script to start the web console will be in
/usr/OV/nvwc/bin

e) At this point, the web console is successfully installed. However, you must
create userids before logging on to the web console.

4.7. Create web userids

a) Start the web console security panel by selecting: Administer-> Server
Setup->Configure->Configure Web Server->Configure Web Console
Security (this will take a few minutes to start)
This is where you create userids for everyone who will be using the NetView
web console and assign a role and scope (if desired) for them.
b) Let’s start by taking a look at how you create scopes. On the Web Console
Security panel,
i) Click Scopes on the left side of the panel

Page 25
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

ii) Click the button on the toolbar to Add a new item to the selected
category:
iii) At this point, the Add Scope dialog should be displayed. Enter the
name for the scope that you want to create (i.e. labscope). Click OK to
create the new scope.
iv) Now click on the new scope name that you added to create the
scooping limitations. Currently scoping can be done by network or
location.

v) Select the networks that you would like to include in your scope and
click Add to add them to the list.
vi) When you have selected all of the networks, click one of the Roles (i.e.
Administrator, Operator, SuperUser or User) to see how the Roles
work. You can either create your own custom Role, change one of the
existing ones to suit your needs, or use one of the four default roles.
vii) When you are done looking at the roles, select Users
viii) Click on the Add a New Item to the Selected category button to add
a user. .

Page 26
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

c) Fill in the appropriate fields to create your new user. You may want to create
multiple users at this point to see how scoping affects the web console user.
Create at least one user with No Scoping Restrictions and one user with
scoping restrictions. You must assign a role by selecting one from the list.
When you are finished, select OK to create your new user.

Page 27
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

d) When you have created all of your new users , select File-> Save. You’ll then
be prompted to Restart the web server, select Yes again. At this point, you are
ready to bring up a NetView web console.

4.7.2. The netviewd daemon

The native console can now run in unattended mode as the netviewd daemon, without a user being
logged on. This provides the ability to run the NetView program as the native console or as the
netviewd daemon, with no loss of functionality.

Previous versions of the NetView program required that a native console be running in order for the
Web Console to access map data. This posed problems in environments where the NetView server
ran with no operator in attendance, because it required that a user always be logged onto the system
and be running the native console.

The netviewd daemon is not registered or started by default. Use the Server Setup application to
enable the netviewd daemon When the netviewd daemon is registered, it is automatically started and
stopped by operations that stop and start all other daemons. To register and start the netviewd
daemon:
a) Bring up the server setup window by selecting Administer -> Server Setup

Page 28
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

b) Double click on Configure Web Server, then Enable Web Daemons

c) Both the webserver daemon and the snmpserver deamon are registered and
started by default. If you are going to be using web consoles in an
environment where you don’t want to rely on an open NetView map on the
server console, you should register the netviewd daemon as well. Once it has
been registered, it will start and stop automatically with the other NetView
daemons. To register, select yes from the drop down menu next to enable
netviewd daemon and then click OK.
d) Select close after you receive the message that the operation is complete.
Note that the netviewd daemon can also be registered via command line using
the /usr/OV/bin/ovaddobj command. See the man pages or the
Administrators Reference for information on how to use this command.

Page 29
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

On UNIX, the native console and the netviewd daemon can be run simultaneously. (ON Windows, only
onecan be running at a time). When netviewd starts up, it tries to open the default map in read-write mode.
While netviewd has the read-write map open, all other users running NetView consoles are limited to read-
only versions of the default map and all pertinent read-only map restrictions will apply. If a user wants to use
the read-write map, they must either stop and unregister the netviewd daemon and start the native console
or use the -dconsole option to the netview script by typing:
netview -dconsole
This option temporarily suspends the netviewd daemon and allows the NetView program to be opened with
the default map in read-write mode. The netviewd daemon is restarted automatically when the native
console exits. Because the current map is closed and a new read-write map is opened, any open
connections to the Web Console's Submap Explorer will be lost and a new Submap Explorer must be
opened at the Web Console. See the NetView Release notes for information on running multiple netviewd
daemons.

5 . U s i n g t h e We b C o n s o l e

5.1. Start the Web Console

Now that NetView is installed and configured and the web console has been installed and configured,
start the web console to get an idea of the differences between the web console and the native console.
a) Start the web console by entering:
/usr/OV/nvwc/bin/nvwc.sh&
Note that you will probably want to add the path to this script to your default
path in your .profile so that you don’t have to enter the entire path each time.

Page 30
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

b) You will be prompted for userid, password and hostname of the NetView
server that you want to log in to. Be sure to use one of the userids and
passwords that you defined in Section 4.7 above.

c) Note that when the web console first starts up you will have a blank screen. At
this point you will need to select what you want to open. The reason for this is
for those users who want to quickly connect, perform some diagnostics or look
at events, etc. without waiting for the topology maps to load. This gives users
the option to open only those applications that they need.

Page 31
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

d) To open a topology map, select File -> Open

e) If you have multiple maps open, you will be given a select box to select the
map that you want to open. Otherwise, you will go directly to the topology
display.

Page 32
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

f) To open the event browser, select Tools -> Event Browser

Page 33
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

Page 34
<NetView Integrated TCP/IP Services> Proof-of-Concept Cookbook

g) File-> Exit to close the web console. Try logging in with different userids with
different roles, some scoped and some unscoped to see the differences. Note
that Scoped users will not see Smartsets on the web console.

Page 35