Applies To:
Show Versions
WANJet
- 4.0.0
5
Monitoring Performance
Introducing reports
There are several different reports in the WANJet appliance's Web UI that you can use to monitor the status, connectivity and performance of your WANJet appliance. Most reports fall into one of the following categories:
You can access the following reports by expanding Reports in the menu and clicking one of the following report options:
To ensure accurate reports, we suggest that you frequently synchronize the time settings on the WANJet appliances and check the time settings for the Reports. For more information, see Time settings .
This chapter also covers other ways of obtaining information about WANJet appliance's performance, including network diagnostic tools, operational logs, and integration with third-party reporting tools.
Status report
The WANJet appliance's Status report provides the status and details for a remote WANJet appliance. If the remote WANJet appliance has a redundant peer, the Remote Status report also displays details about the peer appliance. The Remote Status report is the first screen displayed when you log in to the WANJet appliance Web UI.
To view the Status report
In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Status.
The initial WANJet Status screen displays the following information for all connected WANJet appliances:
If you want to view the status of the remote WANJet appliance immediately after changing any of its settings, you must wait until the local WANJet appliance communicates with the remote WANJet appliance. This can take up to two minutes. Once this time has elapsed, refresh your browser.
Real Time Traffic report
The Real Time Traffic report displays a graph of all network traffic, in real time, over both the LAN and the WAN. This provides an at-a-glance overview of the network traffic that is passing through the WANJet appliance.
To view a graph of network traffic in real time
In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Real Time Traffic.
The Real Time Traffic screen displays.
In this graph:
- The vertical axis indicates the amount of network traffic, in bytes per second.
- The horizontal axis indicates the time (using a 24-hour clock) in hours, minutes, and seconds, to the nearest ten seconds.
- The blue line (LAN In) represents the raw data that destined for the WAN passing into the local WANJet appliance from the LAN.
- The yellow line (LAN Out) represents optimized data passing out of the local WANJet appliance en route to the remote WANJet appliance.
- The red line (WAN In) represents optimized data passing into the local WANJet appliance from its remote partner.
- The green line (WAN Out) represents reconstituted data passing out of the local WANJet appliance and into the LAN.
Comparative Throughput reports
You can generate a Comparative Throughput report based on any combination of traffic direction, data type, and time period.
At the top of each report screen, there is a summary of the amount of data (in megabytes) handled before and after compression, and the compression ratio achieved (expressed as a percentage). These figures vary according to the time period selected and the direction of traffic. Comparative Throughput reports refresh automatically every two minutes. You can easily import CSV reports to a database, or spreadsheet package.
To generate a Comparative Throughput report and save it to CSV
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Comparative Throughput.
- On the menu bar, click one of the following to select the direction of traffic and to display the associated report screen:
- From the options below the Throughput table, click one of the following to determine how the data is displayed:
- Performance Increase report (default)
- From beneath the chart, click an option that represents the time period for which you want to view collected data. The default is current day.
- From the Download Report list, choose CSV.
- Click the Download button.
Performance Increase report
The Performance Increase report displays the percentage increase in bandwidth, due to using the WANJet appliance.
In this graph, the vertical axis indicates the percentage increase in bandwidth. This is calculated by comparing the bandwidth freed up by the WANJet appliance to the bandwidth used after optimization. This is calculated as follows:
(Freed Bandwidth / Bandwidth after optimization) * 100 = Percentage Performance Increase
For example, if your bandwidth before the WANJet was 100MB, and the bandwidth used by data after the WANJet is 25MB, then the amount of bandwidth freed up by the WANJet is 75MB. With these values, the equation results in the following:
(75MB / 25MB) x 100 = 300% performance increase
Actual Bandwidth Expansion report
The Actual Bandwidth Expansion report displays the actual bandwidth amount that the WANJet appliance has freed, by optimizing network data.
In this graph, the vertical axis represents the bandwidth expansion in kilobytes, megabytes, and so forth. (The unit used depends on the extent to which the bandwidth has expanded over the selected time period.)
Optimized Data report
The Optimized Data report displays the difference in the amounts of network traffic before and after WANJet appliance processes the data.
In this graph:
Overall Data report
The Overall Data report allows you to view and compare the amounts of passthrough data, raw data, and optimized data.
In this graph:
- The vertical axis indicates the amount of data passing through the link (in KB, MB, GB, and so forth).
- The green bars represent the amount of passthrough data.
- The blue bars represent the amount of compressed (optimized) data.
- The yellow bars represent the amount of freed bandwidth.
- The bars as a whole represent the total amount of data passing through the F5 appliance.
Link Utilization report
The Link Utilization report is similar to the Optimized Data report . However, instead of showing the total amount of data optimized over a given time period, this Link Utilization report displays the average amount of bandwidth used per second, compared to what would have been used if network traffic had not been optimized.
In this graph:
- The vertical axis indicates the amount of bandwidth (in kilobits per second, megabits per second, and so forth).
- The blue bars represent the actual bandwidth used.
- The bars as a whole represent the amount of bandwidth that would have been used if network traffic had not been optimized; therefore, the yellow bars represent the amount of bandwidth saved.
Diagnostics report
The Diagnostics report provides you access to a range of useful information, such as IP addresses, error log files, and the results of popular network analysis tools.
To view diagnostics information
Monitoring
Monitoring diagnostic information is broken up into the following categories:
Interfaces diagnostics
A WANJet appliance typically has at least two active network interfaces: one for the connection to the LAN and one for the connection to the WAN. In addition, if a redundant peer WANJet appliance is present on your LAN, there is an interface for that connection. (For more information, see Redundant peers .)
To view diagnostics for interfaces
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose Interfaces from the Monitoring menu.
The Interfaces screen displays with the following information for each network interface: - The interface's MAC address (a unique identifier attached to most forms of networking equipment).
- The interface's maximum speed (in Mbit/s) and duplex setting (Full Duplex / Half Duplex).
- The interface's current status (Link ok / Link error).
- Reception (RX) errors raised by the interface, including dropped packets, overruns, and frame errors.
- Transmission (TX) errors raised by the interface, including dropped packers, overruns, carrier errors, and collisions.
Optimized Sessions diagnostics
The Optimized Sessions report displays all of the network connections at the application layer that are currently being optimized by WANJet appliance using the ACM5 process.
To view diagnostics for Optimized Sessions
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose Optimized Sessions from the Monitoring menu.
The Optimized Sessions screen displays. - Local IP
IP address and port for the local machine. - Direction
Direction of optimized data traffic flow. A right arrow indicates that the direction is from the local machine to the remote machine. A left arrow indicates that the direction is from the remote machine to the local machine. - Remote IP
IP address and port for the remote WANJet appliance. - WANJet IP
IP address for the remote WANJet appliance handing the optimized session.
The Optimized Sessions report is divided into two sections: one for TCP and one for UDP traffic.
The TCP section contains the following information:
The UDP section contains two columns with the IP address and port number for each UDP session's source and destination.
Passthrough Sessions diagnostics
A passthrough session is a network connection (at the application layer) for which traffic is not optimized by WANJet appliance, but allowed to pass through the appliance untouched.
To view diagnostics for Passthrough Sessions
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose Passthrough Sessions from the Monitoring menu.
The Passthrough Sessions screen displays. - All Passthrough Connections
Displays a detailed list of all passthrough connections. - Optimize Eligible Connections
Displays connections that were set up before the WANJet appliance was last activated. If the protocol and software allow it, you can intercept and reset these connections so that from this point on, they will be optimized using ACM5. This is most useful for connections that need to be live for a long time so that they can transfer large amounts of data, such as replication processes. - Autopass
Displays a list of connections that are passed through automatically when the destination server is refusing connections. - Realtime
Displays passthrough traffic throughput in real time.
The Passthrough Sessions report is divided into two sections: one for TCP traffic and one for UDP traffic, with specific information for each session.
From this screen you can view one of the following reports:
WANJet Links diagnostics
To view diagnostics for WANJet Links
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose WANJet Links from the Monitoring menu.
The WANJet Links screen displays the following information: - Remote IP
IP address of the remote WANJet appliance. - #Retrans
Number of retransmitted packets to the remote WANJet appliance. - #ACM5
Number of network connections to the remote WANJet appliance that are being optimized using ACM5. - #ACM5 without compression
Number of passthrough network connections that are not being optimized.
For additional information about links to remote WANJet appliances, refer to Remote WANJet appliances .
RADIUS Status diagnostics
The RADIUS Status screen displays details of any RADIUS authentication servers known to the local WANJet appliance. Remote authentication through the RADIUS protocol is an alternative to local authentication with a user name and password stored on the WANJet appliance.
For information about how to configure WANJet appliance to use RADIUS authentication, see Configuring remote authentication . For technical details about the RADIUS protocol, refer to http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2865.txt.
To view diagnostics for RADIUS status
The WANJet appliance displays a warning message if the settings for both the timeout and number of retries are too high, because this could cause a delay in determining if the RADIUS server is not responding to a login attempt.
TCP Statistics diagnostics
TCP Statistics provide the following reports for TCP connectivity activity:
The Connections States report is displayed by default.
To view diagnostics for TCP Statistics
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose TCP Statistics from the Monitoring menu.
The TCP Statistics screen displays with the Connections States report, by default. - Click the options above the report to view one of the following reports:
Connection States
The Connection States report displays a graph of current state for each TCP connection that is visible to the WANJet appliance, for both optimized and passthrough connections. In this report, three lines represent the number of connections in the following states:
- ESTABLISHED
Those connections that have been successfully opened and are working normally. - TIME-WAIT
Connections in the TIME-WAIT status are waiting to see that the remote TCP received the acknowledgment of a connection termination request. This can take up to four minutes. - Other
Other possible connection states include:
For more information about these states, see IETF RFC #793 at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc793.txt.
Packet Retransmissions
TCP segments that time out without being acknowledged by a destination host are retransmitted by the source host. A high number of these retransmitted segments can indicate network problems. Therefore, the Web UI includes a report that tracks those numbers and their trends.
The Packet Retransmissions report consists of a graph with a blue line. The blue line indicates the number of TCP segments (which often correspond to IP packets) that had to be retransmitted per second.
Receive queue packets Pruned
The Receive queue packets Pruned report provides a graphic representation of the number of segments pruned from the TCP receive queue due to socket overrun. Pruning can occur if the TCP receive buffer is too large on the receiving host. The optimal buffer size is twice the product of the bandwidth and the delay.
For more information about TCP tuning background, see http://www-didc.lbl.gov/TCP-tuning/background.html.
TDR Statistics diagnostics
Transparent Data Reduction (TDR) further enhances network optimization by caching the contents of frequently accessed files in memory.
To view diagnostics for TDR Statistics
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose TDR Statistics from the Monitoring menu.
The TDR Statistics screen displays the following information: - WANJetIP
IP address of the remote WANJet appliance. - Sent Bytes (TDR)
The amount of data sent in bytes, to which TDR has been applied since the WANJet link became active. - Sent Bytes (other)
Amount of data in bytes to which TDR has not been applied. - Received Bytes (TDR)
Amount of received date in bytes to which TDR has been applied. - Received Bytes (other)
Amount of received date in bytes to which TDR has not been applied. - TDR efficiency %
Percentage of data sent across the link to which TDR has been applied. The bold number at the bottom of the report is the average for all remote WANJet links.
QoS diagnostics
Quality of Service (QoS) policies can help to improve network performance by dedicating bandwidth to specific network traffic.
To view diagnostics for QoS policies for remote networks
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose TDR Statistics from the Monitoring menu.
The QoS report screen displays the following information: - Remote
The Remote network that has a QoS policy assigned to it. - Policy
Name of the QoS policy assigned to the remote network. - Rate
Actual bandwidth assigned to each QoS policy. - Bytes Sent
Number of bytes sent for each QoS policy. - Packets Sent
Number of packets successfully sent for each QoS policy. - Dropped
Number of packets dropped for each QoS policy.
VLANs diagnostics
A Virtual LAN (VLAN) is a computer network which has its boundaries defined logically, rather than physically. VLANs must be explicitly added to the WANJet appliance Web UI, since they are often implemented by adding tags to Ethernet frames, and these tags must be preserved during optimization.
To view VLANs supported by WAN optimizer
For information about configuring VLANs to work with the WANJet appliance, refer to Virtual LANs .
Connectivity
Connectivity diagnostic information is organized in the following categories:
Ethernet diagnostics
The Diagnose Ethernet screen displays details about the Ethernet interfaces for the local WANJet appliance. For WANJet appliance to work correctly, the speed and duplex settings for the LAN and WAN interfaces should be the same. The Diagnose Ethernet screen confirms if that is the case, and displays a warning if it is not.
For information about configuring the speed and duplex settings for Ethernet interfaces, see Changing the interface speed ).
To view diagnostics for Ethernet connectivity
The following information displays for each interface:
WANJet appliance QoS does not work unless the Ethernet interfaces are connected as follows:
Note: If a redundant pair is present, the eth2 interface must be connected to the redundant peer. For more information, see Redundant peers .
IP diagnostics
The Diagnose IP screen displays technical details about the local WANJet appliance's IP configuration.
To view diagnostics for IP connectivity
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose IP from the Connectivity menu.
The Diagnose IP screen displays the following information: - The IP address of the local WANJet appliance.
- The netmask of the local subnet.
This determines how much of the address identifies the subnetwork on which the WANJet appliance host resides, and how much identifies the host itself. - The IP address of the WAN gateway used by the local WANJet appliance.
- The results of the local gateway ping.
Addresses must adhere to the Internet Protocol standards. For more information about configuring addresses, see Updating a configuration.
Bridge diagnostics
The Diagnose Bridge screen displays details of the internal connectivity, or bridge, between Ethernet interfaces between the two WANJet appliances.
To view diagnostics for Bridge connectivity
WANJet appliance QoS does not work unless the Ethernet interfaces are connected as follows:
Remote WANJet appliance diagnostics
The Diagnose Remote WANJet screen displays details about the remote WANJet appliances that are connected to the local WANJet appliance.
To view diagnostics for remote WANJet connectivity
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose Remote WANJets from the Connectivity menu.
The Diagnose Remote WANJet screen displays the following information for each remote WANJet appliance: - The software version number, which is compared to the local version number
- The status of the local WANJet appliance
- The number of remote WANJet appliances
- The IP address for the remote WANJet appliance
- The WANJet appliance type, which will be Single if there is no redundant peer at the remote end
- Whether the remote WANJet appliance is responding to pings from the local WANJet appliance
- Whether the local WANJet appliance can connect to the remote WANJet appliance on the ports that WANJet appliances use to communicate with each other. These ports are 3701, 3702, and 3703 by default.
General
General diagnostic information is broken up into the following categories:
To view general diagnostic information
In the menu bar of the Diagnostic screen from the General menu, choose the item that corresponds to the information that you want to view.
Bridge Forwarding Database diagnostics
The Bridge Forwarding Database Media Access Control (MAC) Addresses screen lists all of the network devices that have sent traffic through the local WANJet appliance bridge.
To view diagnostics for Bridge Forwarding Database
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose Bridge Forwarding Database from the General menu.
The Bridge Forwarding Database screen displays the following information for each network device configured: - MAC Address
A unique identifier attached to most forms of networking equipment, and used by many network protocols. - IP Address
Only available if the device has communicated directly with the WANJet appliance - Interface
The interface is defined as eth0 if the device is connected to the local WANJet appliance through the LAN and as eth1 if the device is connected through the WAN. - Local
This column displays Yes for the WANJet appliance's own two internal network devices; that is, its Ethernet interfaces.
Administration Tools
The WANJet appliance provides a browser-based user interface for the following three network administration diagnostic tools:
To use the administration tools
- In the navigation pane, expand Reports and click Diagnostics.
The initial Diagnostics screen displays. - On the menu bar, choose Administration Tools from the General menu.
The Administration Tools screen displays. For each tool, there is a box in which you can specify command-line parameters, and a button to initiate the program using the shell. - Click the button for the tool that you want to run.
The lower half of the screen displays the following information: - The full path and parameters to the process, as it appears on the command line.
- The process number, as allocated by the operating system. You can stop a process by clicking the process number before it has finished running.
- The process output, which is similar to what you would see in the shell after running the program from the command line.
- The return code, which is 0 if the program returns successfully.
Ping
The ping tool provides a simple test to confirm that a target host is online and reachable through a TCP/IP network. It works by sending out ICMP request packets to the target and listening for response packets in return. The percentage of packets lost, as well as the time taken to send and receive them, provides an indication as to how well the connection is working.
If a ping is unable to reach a target host, that is the statistical summary shows a 100% packet loss, it does not necessarily mean that there is no working network connection between source and target. For example, a firewall might be blocking ICMP requests from reaching the target host, but allowing some other network traffic through. For more information about the ping tool, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping.
By default, WANJet appliance provides the following parameters for ping:
-R -c 5 -w 10 <IP address of target host>
The default target is the gateway machine for the subnet on which the WANJet appliance resides. You can change the parameters by typing new parameters in the associated text box.
F5 Networks recommends that only advanced users change parameters.
The WANJet appliance displays the following output for ping:
Traceroute
The traceroute tool is used to plot the route that packets take to a target host. It can be helpful in determining the location of any network disruption.
Traceroute works by incrementing the time to live (TTL) value of successive packets sent out. TTL values are decremented as packets pass through intermediate hosts (known as hops). When the TTL reaches a value of 1, a time exceeded message is sent back to the source host (the host on which traceroute is running). By examining the origins of these messages, you can reconstruct the path that packets take to the target host.
Traceroute sends out UDP datagram packets by default. If UDP probes are being blocked by a firewall, you can use ICMP echo requests instead (as ping does) by specifying the -I option. Packets are normally sent to port 33434, which should not be in use. If the target host is listening on port 33434, you can specify a different port using the -p option.
For more information about traceroute, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traceroute.
By default, the WANJet appliance provides the following parameters for traceroute:
-v <IP address of target host>-c 10 (not port 10000)
As with the ping tool, the default target is the gateway for the local subnet. You can change the parameters by typing new parameters in the associated text box.
F5 Networks recommends that only advanced users change parameters.
The WANJet appliance displays the following output for traceroute:
- The IP address of the target host, the maximum number of hops (that is, the maximum TTL), and the size of the packets sent.
- A list of hosts through which packets are passing together with the round-trip time taken for each of the three packets (packets are sent out in threes, by default) to travel from the source host, to the intermediate host, and back again.
Packet Capture
You can use the tcpdump utility to intercept and display the contents of TCP/IP packets on the network. This is useful for debugging your network configuration, because it allows you to isolate the source of a problem by determining if all routing is working correctly. Data is saved to a PCAP file.
You need a specialized application, such as Ethereal (a network protocol analyzer which runs on both Linux and Windows) to read PCAP files produced by tcpdump. You can download Ethereal and its documentation for free from http://www.ethereal.com/.
By default, the WANJet appliance provides the following parameters for tcpdump:
-c 10 (not port 1000)
Packets sent to port 10000 are ignored, since this is the port that the Web UI uses to communicate with the local WANJet appliance. You can change the parameters by typing new parameters in the associated text box.
F5 Networks recommends that only advanced users change parameters.
When the tcpdump process has finished running, the Tools screen displays a link to the PCAP file that is produced. If you have an application that can read PCAP files, you can open the PCAP file directly, or you can save the file to disk. The PCAP file is also stored on the server where tcpdump is running, at the following location:
/usr/local/NetOptimizer/logs/dump.pcap
Diagnostic Log
The Diagnostic Log contains status information and errors that the WANJet appliance records during a session. This Diagnostic Log keeps you informed and helps you resolve any problems that you might encounter while working with the WANJet appliance. You can clear the data in the Diagnostic Log at any time. You can also download a system snapshot as a zipped text file to your hard disk. You can provide this zipped text file to the F5 Networks Technical Support team to help resolve technical issues.
To view the Diagnostic Log
To clear the Diagnostic Log
To download a system snapshot
- From the Diagnostic Log screen, click the System Snapshot button.
The browser opens a download window for you to save the snapshot file to your local disk. - Save the snapshot file. The system snapshot file is named snapshot.txt.gz. This is a compressed plain text file.
- Rename the compressed file in the following format:
For example:
snapshot-acme-2005-04-22You can provide this file to F5 Network Technical Support for assistance in troubleshooting issues.
Third-party reporting systems
The WANJet appliance is integrated with several third-party reporting systems, including Syslog, SNMP, and RMON2.
Syslog reports
With the WANJet appliance, you can view syslog reports from an external syslog server. These reports include data, such as the amount of sent and received data that is processed by the WANJet appliance.
You must type the IP address for the machine you are using in the Syslog Server IP box of the Syslog and SNMP screen, in order to view syslog data. For more information, Configuring Syslog and SNMP settings .
SNMP reports
With the WANJet appliance, you can use an external computer as a management station for viewing Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) logs that the WANJet appliance produces on the local appliance. The SNMP data trees are stored in an Management Information Base (MIB).
The SNMP data on WANJet appliance includes information about the network cards, total bandwidth saved for sent and received data, and amounts of sent and received data processed using ACM5.
To configure the WANJet appliance to use an SNMP server
- In the navigation pane, expand Configuration and click Monitoring.
The initial WANJet Syslog and SNMP screen displays. - In the Syslog Server IP box, type the community string and IP address for the SNMP server.
For detailed instructions, see Configuring Syslog and SNMP settings . - Click IP Access Control.
The IP Access Control screen displays. - Verify that the Web UI has access to the IP address of the SNMP server. The default setting is to grant access to all, but this may have been changed by an administrator.
For detailed instructions, see Granting Web UI access .
To view SNMP reports
To view the SNMP tables, use SNMP-compliant software. You need to provide SNMP-compliant software with the IP address for the WANJet appliance and community string that you specified on the Syslog and SNMP screen.
For a list of WANJet appliance SNMP errors and descriptions, see Appendix A, WANJet Appliance Errors .
RMON2 Reports
You can use the WANJet appliance to view RMON2 data trees, which are part of the SNMP data trees that the WANJet appliance produces. The RMON2 data is stored in a MIB.
The RMON2 data on WANJet appliance includes data sent and received between two nodes, the IP addresses of these nodes, the port used to send and receive data, data size before and after the WANJet appliance processes it, times at which data was sent, and the numbers of connections.
To enable RMON2 Logs
- In the navigation pane, expand Configuration and click Monitoring.
The initial WANJet Syslog and SNMP screen displays. - Check the Enable RMON2 Logs check box.
- Click the button next to either Raw Data or WANJet Data.
- In Community String box, type the community string.
For detailed instructions, see Configuring Syslog and SNMP settings . - Click the Save button.
You access RMON2 data the same way that you access SNMP data. Before accessing RMON2 data, you must specify a community string and IP address for the SNMP server as discussed in the previous section for SNMP reports. Set the RMON2 preferences on the Syslog and SNMP screen.
For detailed instructions, see Configuring Syslog and SNMP settings . Note that the SNMP server must have access to WANJet appliance, as described under Granting Web UI access .
To view RMON2 reports
To view the RMON2 data tree, use SNMP-compliant software.You need to provide SNMP-compliant software with the IP address for the WANJet appliance and community string that you specified on the Syslog and SNMP screen.
