Network Discovery: Running the Wizard

When you choose "Run Wizard..." from the Actions menu, the following dialog appears.

 

If you have more than one network card, the "Network Interface" tab will be active and you must choose which interface you want to probe.

If the current network interface card (NIC) has DHCP enabled, the starting and ending IP addresses are obtained from the card's IP address and its configured "subnet mask".

When you click the Start button, PingView will ping every possible address in that range and display the results in the center pane.  Click "Create" to automatically create a new collection.

You should probably leave the "Use machine names..." check box as checked.  This causes the discovery logic to use the Windows machine name of a discovered device instead of its current IP address.  Since the IP addreses of computers and devices using DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) can and do change frequently, using the machine name allows PingView to track them more easily.

The values you choose for the local sub-net IP address range are saved into your collection.  They are used when rescanning the network (see below).

Rescanning and Updating Your Network

When you add devices or when you suspect that something in your network may have changed, PingView can rescan the network and incorporate these changes.  It certainly does not find everything, but it will usually gather most of the information you need.

The IP address range used for the scan is set either by the Wizard (see above) or in the Collection Properties.

When the collection is not running, choose "Rescan and Update Network" from the Actions menu.  You'll see the dialog below appear

 

When the process is completed, the lower right-hand pane of PingView's main window will show you in detail all the changes it made.

Managing Your Network

Most of today's DSL modems, cable modems, routers, wireless access points and other devices are configurable through a built-in web site that runs as part of the network "stack" (software) in the device.  Since these tiny web sites are standard HTTP servers, they are almost always available on port 80, the standard web server port.  Non-local or Internet-based web sites, on the other hand, have an uncountably wide variety of management technology, but most of them start the same way, by navigating to the primary web site and logging in.

Each target's context (right-click) menu has a "Browse..." feature that causes PingView to launch your browser and navigate to the device, treating it as a web site.  For example, if you're Linksys router is at address 192.168.1.1, the "Browse" action will cause a web browser to appear and navigate to "http://192.168.1.1".  This will usually cause the user id and password "challenge" box to appear, allowing you to log directly into the maintenance capability of the router.

If one of your devices has a different maintenance URL, you can enter this in the target properties dialog.

Managing Your Network Remotely

PingView can be used in a "client-server" mode to allow detailed information from a local sub-net to be available to clients anywhere in the world.  See "Managing Remote Networks" for more information.

Graphing Response Times

After PingView has been running for a few cycles, you can view graphs of the responses for one or more targets.  Right-click on the target and choose "Graph...".  The graph windows stay open, and you can have as many of them as you want.

 

Alternatively, if you right-click on a graph window, you can add or remove other targets to the same graph and switch to a logarithmic view of time.

In the following graph, note the legend in the upper right-hand corner.

 

The information for the graph comes from the last few testing cycles of the collection.  You can clear the history whenever you want.

Controlling Logging

If you enable a log file, PingView writes a single line record of every significant event encountered during processing.

The "View Log..." menu item (under "Actions") lets you view the current log file or open any other PingView log.

Using the "Filter" option, you can choose which particular records are of interest to you.   All entries are listed backwards in time from the most recent event.

 

Using the SNMP "Listener"

PingView can receive and display Simple Network Message Protocol messages from routers and other devices.  Products from Linksys and other manufacturers support this capability, but it must be configured correctly.

When configured correctly, SNMP "Listener" receives and displays the messages in a separate window.  The messages are parsed into one of two formats: "Linksys", the format use by the company's devices, and "raw", or unformatted.

A machine should have a static (fixed) IP address to receive SNMP messages.  Typically, you use the built-in web site in a router or hub to activate SNMP and route the messages you choose to a standard port at a fixed IP address.  Therefore, the machine PingView runs on should have a fixed IP address if the Listener is to be used successfully.