Quick Start Guide for Setting up a Dashboard

Quick Start: Dashboard Quick Start: SNMP Enable SNMP on Vista Enable SNMP on XP

A Cool Sample Dashboard: Click to Enlarge
Figure 1: Fully configured Dashboard
The best way to get immediate value from your PacketTrap pt360 is to configure the Dashboard to display information about the devices on your network.

The dashboard to the right (Figure 1) shows a sample dashboard that is monitoring various aspects of a network.

Some of the gadgets you can use rely on basic network protocols like 'ping' and others use more sophisticated protocols like SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol).

Most 'detail' information (CPU, memory, etc.) will require that you know the SNMP information for your network. Be sure to checkout the SNMP Quick Start Guide (how to turn the service on for your personal machine, how to connect to SNMP on external devices and some general SNMP details that will help you get started in monitoring more of your network).

Step 1

Open the Dashboard

Step 1: Click to Enlarge
Figure 2: Tool Home Page (starting page) of the pt360 Tool Suite
In the top left of the PacketTrap pt360 Tool Suite, you will see a button that will open the Dashboard

Click the [Dashboard] button and you will be taken to an empty Dashboard page

Our first example will start with a simple 'Availability List' that will show us if our most important servers are responding to 'ping'.












Step 1

Add a Gadget to the Dashboard

Step 2: Click to Enlarge
Figure 3: Add Gadget to Dashboard
Click [All Gadgets] button on the toolbar and choose the 'Availability List'. An empty Availability List Gadget will be dropped onto your dashboard. You can feel free to drag and drop the Gadget to any place you like on the dashboard page.


Tip

TIP: You can add or remove columns on any dashboard tab by clicking the arrow in the right corner of the dashboard tab:
Configure Dashboard Columns


Step 1

Configure the Gadget

Step 3: Click to Enlarge
Figure 4: Gadget Configuration Wizard
A Gadget which has not been configured will show a link that directs you to [Click to Configure] the Gadget.

Click the link. The first of three Gadget Configuration Wizard pages will ask you for some basic information. On the first page, you can:
  1. Name the gadget
  2. Set the Refresh Interval
  3. Choose to display IP Addresses or DNS Name
  4. Set the details for the ping operation
  5. Click [Next >]
On the second page, you can configure the IP addresses you want to watch. You can specify one IP address at a time or you can specify a range of addresses.

Click [Next >] when you are done choosing the machines you want to watch and you will see the final page of the wizard.

Tip
TIP: You can start typing an IP address and the text box will drop down a list of possible values. Among these values will be your machine's IP address(s) and the full range of IP addresses on the network your machine is connected to.

On the final page of the wizard, select the values for Warning and Critical thresholds. In this case, you will be selecting a time in milliseconds. By default, if a node takes longer than 50ms to respond, it will be displayed with a yellow bar next to it. If a node takes longer than 70ms to respond, it will be displayed with a red bar next to it. Keep in mind that you may want to set these values differently for internal nodes (those which reside on your internal network) versus external nodes (like websites and other machines outside your network).


Step 1

Run Gadget Run!

Step 4: Click to Enlarge
Figure 5: The Availability List Gadget in Action
Once you are done configuring your gadget, you can see it run by clicking the [Finish] button on the last step of the Gadget Configuration Wizard.

Repeat this process for as many of the gadgets as you want to add to each Dashboard tab (add more tabs if you run out of room!).

Remember to go through the SNMP Quick Start Guide if you want help in setting up SNMP and SNMP-based Gadgets. All of the Gadgets that display CPU, Memory and Network Utilization rely on SNMP to get the necessary information from each node.

There's a lot more you can do with the dashboard; but this should give you an idea of how easy it is to set up each gadget.



Quick Start: Dashboard Quick Start: SNMP Enable SNMP on Vista Enable SNMP on XP