Hi Bill,

I was reading the excellent write up below by you at the mail-archive.
I would like know where to set the "timeout" mentioned in your response,
i.e. the "usually 3 seconds" timeout until IM counts that packet as
'lost' and retries the request.

 

Is it the "Server Settings" -> "Device Thresholds" -> "Response Time" ->
"Warning" which is default to 3 seconds?

 

Thanks,

 

Leonard Siu

Quantum Data Systems (H.K.) Ltd.

http://www.quantum.com.hk

 

Poley, Jason wrote:

> Yeah, I get all that but what do you mean by 'lost?'  What exactly is
this

> counting?  Errors reported by the device?  Lost polls? Who is loosing
these

> packets and what kind of packets are you referring to?  I see no
errors on

> any interfaces anywhere.

 

InterMapper polls devices by sending a request packet and receiving back
a 

response packet. If InterMapper sends a

request packet and does not receive a response within the specified
timeout 

(usually 3 seconds), IM counts that packet

as 'lost' and  retries the request. If InterMapper's request fails to
elicit a 

response three consecutive times, the

device's status is set to down. (3 is the default)

 

With an SNMP probe, the lost packets are SNMP packets. There are three 

possibilities for where the packet was 'lost':

 

1. The request didn't reach the target device.

2. The target device did not generate a response within 3 seconds.

3. The response did not make it back to InterMapper.

 

The SNMP probe is slightly complicated by the fact that the final retry
will be 

a ping packet instead of SNMP. We

implemented it this way after finding that some devices do not reliably
answer 

SNMP packets on time. For example, a busy

router might leave SNMP packets unanswered, but answer pings
immediately. 

(Responding to a SNMP query is more

computationally intensive than answering an ICMP echo). A device that
answers 

the final ping retry is marked as "No SNMP

response".

 

If pings get through fine, but an occasional SNMP packet is lost to one 

particular device, my sense is that nothing is

wrong with the network. I would advise that you increase the threshold
for 

packet loss for that one device to 10% and

leave it at that.

 

Let me know if this helps.

 

Regards,

 

Bill Fisher

Dartware, LLC

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