Monitored Routes

To add, remove, edit and generally manage the trace routes click the 'Monitored Routes' links from the main window as shown below or go to the 'Options' menu and choose 'Monitored Routes'.

By clicking the 'Monitored Routes' link the window below will appear

The Monitored Trace Routes window lists all the server routes you have added and all the RTA routes (explained later) as well. To the left hand side of the window are various options that include adding new routes, editing routes and viewing rules for certain routes.

To add a new route click the 'Add a new route' link at the top of the options list and the window below will appear

The options for this dialog box are explained below:

Description: the new route needs to be given a description that will appear at the beginning of each listing to identify one route from another.  It is advisable to use names that are brief as long names can make certain views look more complicated.

Address: the actual domain/IP for the trace route needs to be chosen. If the chosen route is an IP address then there is no need to click the 'Resolve' button; if the entry is a domain name, such as www.visualware.com, then the resolve button needs to be clicked in order to resolve the IP address for that domain.

Monitor Service Port: This provides a simple port testing facility. When selected the port option defines a specific port number that will be monitored as an additional test when tracing the route to the device. The selected port number defined is tested to make sure it is responding to Application requests.  For example using port 80 allows you to validate that the web server is responding on the IP device being tested.

Use UDP if ICMP traceroute fails: If ICMP fails to reach the device being monitored because of firewall issues RoutePlotter will try again using UDP as in some cases UDP may be allowed where ICMP is being blocked.

Interval: This option allows an interval to be set for when a new trace should be performed. The options range from 1 minute to 1 hour. When the interval expires RoutePlotter will refresh the trace route and update the database information accordingly.

There are some advanced options also available by clicking the Advanced button. The dialog box below will appear

This dialog allows the size of each ping packet to be set (bytes) and the ping timeout to be set (ms). The ping timeout value is the maximum time RoutePlotter will wait for a ping packet to return. Packets that exceed this time are reported as lost. The 'size' option allows you to set how many bytes will be sent in each ping packet. The default is 32. The minimum value is 4 bytes but setting higher values can be useful in gauging how applications are performing as this better mimics application data packets at the router.

Once the settings for the new route are complete click the Ok buttons until the Monitored Trace Routes window is back in view. The new route will now be listed in the server routes list and will appear on the server also.