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Craig Leres
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NLANR/DAST Multicast Beacon v1.4-0 February 4, 2011 Mitch Kutzko - mitch@dast.nlanr.net General installation notes See INSTALL. Perl Requirements If your Perl installation doesn't already have it, you'll need to install Time::HiRes. (Darwin installs seem to be the only ones I've tested under that don't already have it.) You can use: /usr/bin/perl -MCPAN -e shell and at the prompt enter: install Time::HiRes to install Time::HiRes for those OS's. If it's the first time you run CPAN, you'll have to go through the Perl Inquisition while it figures out where and how to install what it needs, but then it should be much simpler thereafter. I used all the default values to the many, many questions when I installed to the PowerPC I used for this, and it worked out fine. * The Beacon is a perl script. It requires Perl 5.6 or better. You'll need to compile and install everything in the tarball to get it to run. * This version of the Beacon generates five ten as output: central_loss.html, local_loss.html, central_rtt.html, local_rtt.html, central_jitter.html, local_jitter.html, frac_lost.html, beacon_info.html, history.txt, and prevhistory.txt. Loss is the loss seen during the interval between web refreshes. Frac is the instantaneous fractional loss value for that particular Receiver Report. Central_loss is a matrix of the interval loss as seen by all the Beacons reporting their local data back to a specified Central Server via TCP. * IMPORTANT: The Beacon isn't a web server, and doesn't play one on TV. It's totally up to you to find a way to get the information it generates served to the web if that's what you want to do. However, for those that don't have the ability to serve their own data, a copy of the data from multicast group 233.4.200.18, port 10004, as seen by the DAST Central Beacon Server will generally be available at: http://jhereg.ncsa.uiuc.edu and/or http://beacon.dast.nlanr.net. * The Beacon software (as well as a list of Known Issues) can be found at: http://dast.nlanr.net/projects/beacon/ * Unfortunately, as much as we'd like to, we don't have the time or resources to help you debug what's wrong with your Perl install under some OS, or help you figure out why you can't get the module to compile. Those questions are left to the alert Beacon user. When you figure out what was wrong, please send us mail at beacon@dast.nlanr.net, and we'll add your problem and your solution to our Beacon FAQ. (So check the FAQ first -- Maybe the solution to your problem is already there.) * The Beacon creates a file, "multicastbeacon.PID", in the output directory to hold the process ID of the running copy of the Beacon so that duplicate copies aren't started by accident. * There is a mailing list set up for discussion of the current Beacon at beacon@dast.nlanr.net. * Anyone is welcome to use this version of the Beacon, but we ask two things. First, that you credit NLANR and link back to the NLANR/DAST web page for the Beacon (http://dast.nlanr.net/projects/beacon), and second, that you give us feedback on how you're using the Beacon, and what bugs, comments, ideas, or changes you have for it. Please share those with the listserv at beacon@dast.nlanr.net. (You can subscribe by sending an email to majordomo@dast.nlanr.net, with "subscribe beacon@dast.nlanr.net" in the body. This list is publicly archived at http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/lists/beacon.) * Finally, NLANR would like to specifically acknoweldge the invaluable assistance from LBL's Deb Agarwal in finding the problems with the old RTP library, and providing the impetus to move to the new RTP library and finaly get this release up and running. (Thanks, Deb!) Kudos also go out to NCSA's Jon Dugan, for getting the new RTP library SWIG'd and available to me on a next-day basis. (Thanks, Jon!) NLANR/DAST's John Estabrook also resides in the "couldn't have done it without you" category, for his help in solving some of the more esoteric and "interesting" bugs found in the RTP library. (Thanks, John!) Enjoy! Mitch ----------------------- Information about v1.4-0: This version requires Perl 5.6 or better, and does *not* require you to be root on the box you wish to install on. However, you do need to make and install Perl Module "Net::Multicast::Beacon", so if you don't have root, you'll have the additional step of needing to tell Perl where you installed the module. This version produces the following files as the main output: central_loss.html local_loss.html fract_lost.html central_rtt.html local_rtt.html central_jitter.html local_jitter.html beacon_info.html history.txt prevhistory.txt The "central_loss.html" file is the one you are mostly likely interested in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Command Line Options/Examples: ./beacon Starts Beacon using only settings from beacon.conf. ./beacon -o /home/beacon/outputfiles Specifies the directory to write output HTML and txt files to. Don't specify a trailing slash. Config file entry: OUTPUTDIR ./beacon --outputdir /home/beacon/outputfiles Same as previous. ./beacon -n or ./beacon --noshutdownmsg Does NOT write a shutdown message to HTML files when Beacon is shutdown. Config file entry: NOSHUTDOWNMSG ./beacon -c beacon.ncsa.uiuc.edu Specifies the (optional) Central Server to send TCP reports back to. ./beacon --centralservername beacon.ncsa.uiuc.edu Same as previous. ./beacon -i or ./beacon --showip Show Beacon IP addresses in the HTML output. Config file entry: SHOWIP ./beacon -r or ./beacon --showreports Show count of RRs during each interval in the HTML output. Config file entry: SHOWREPORTS ./beacon -s or ./beacon --showssrc Show unique SSRC ID numbers for each Beacon in the HTML output. Config file entry: SHOWSSRC ./beacon -j\ or ./beacon --contactname Specify Beacon contact's name on command line. Config file entry: CONTACTNAME ./beacon -k or ./beacon --contactinfo Specify Beacon contact's info (email, phone, etc.) on command line. Config file entry: CONTACTINFO ./beacon -l or ./beacon --contactlocation Specify Beacon contact's physical location on command line. Config file entry: CONTACTLOCATION ./beacon -w or ./beacon --writehistory Output statistics to CSV flat text file every 10 minutes. History file name is history.txt. Config file entry: WRITEHISTORY ./beacon -e or ./beacon --erasehistory Erase existing history file at startup. If this option is not specified, output will be appended to the existing history file if there is one. Config file entry: ERASEHISTORY ./beacon -y or ./beacon --silencetest Enables periodic Silence tests. Config file entry: SILENCETEST ./beacon -z or ./beacon --bursttest Enables periodic Burst tests. Config file entry: BURSTTEST ./beacon --notifyemail beaconadmin@xyz.edu Specifies the email address to send alarm notifications to. Not yet implemented. Config file entry: NOTIFYEMAIL ./beacon -m beaconadmin@xyz.edu Same as previous. ./beacon -a or ./beacon --background Causes Beacon process to run in background at startup. Config file entry: BACKGROUND ./beacon -f 141.142.98.209 Specifies which interface to use if more than one NIC is present. Config file entry: INTERFACE ./beacon --interface 141.142.98.209 Same as previous. ./beacon -g 233.4.200.19 -p 10002 -t 127 Specifies group, port, and ttl on command line, instead of using settings in beacon.conf. Config file entry: GROUP, PORT, TTL ./beacon --group 233.4.200.19 --port 10002 --ttl 127 Same as previous. ./beacon -b or ./beacon.pl --becentralserver Act as a Central Beacon Server. Only one server is needed for multiple Beacons. To participate with an existing Central Server, you only need to run one Beacon that points to the existing Central Server. Config file entry: BECENTRALSERVER ./beacon -q or ./beacon --syslog Writes output that would normally have gone to STDOUT to SysLog instead. For example, if you're running Linux, you'd look in /var/log/messages for that output. Config file entry: SYSLOG ./beacon -d N or ./beacon --debug N Sets debug level of Beacon script to integer N. Only 1 and 2 are currently used. Config file entry: DEBUG ./beacon -v or ./beacon --version Shows Beacon version information. ./beacon -h or ./beacon --help Gives this message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ KNOWN BUGS, version 1.4-0 * -make install- bug under Darwin There's a problem we're currently looking into with the autoconf/make machinery under the Darwin OS that doesn't perform the actual -make install- correctly. The install appears to run correctly under all other OSs we've tested. The workaround is to go into the .../src directory after the -make install- successfully completes and run a chmod +x beacon on the freshly made beacon executable. You can now run it directly with ./beacon there in the .../src directory or copy it to /usr/local/bin or wherever else you like to put it on your path manually. * True hostname of Central Server in beacon.conf bug There is also a bug in the TCP connection machinery for the TCP Central Server reports that currently requires you to use the true hostname of the Central Server you want to send reports to. This is the CENTRALSERVERNAME setting in .../src/beacon.conf. For example, the actual hostname for the alias of "beacon.ncsa.uiuc.edu" we're using as the Central Beacon Server here at NCSA is "jhereg.ncsa.uiuc.edu". For the moment, you must set CENTRALSERVERNAME = jhereg.ncsa.uiuc.edu to get your individual Beacons to connect correctly. The "beacon.ncsa.uiuc.edu" alias won't work at the moment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please share your comments, questions, bug reports, concerns, and feedback with us via the "beacon" listserv at beacon@dast.nlanr.net. You can subscribe to it by sending an email to "majordomo@dast.nlanr.net", with "subscribe beacon@dast.nlanr.net" in the body. This list is publicly archived at http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/lists/beacon. Thanks!
