8.4   The evtRecv Tool

This tool allows you to upload event logs to the host using a socket, and save them immediately in a file without configuring either TSFS or NFS on the target. This same functionality offered by evtRecv is also available in TSFS; nevertheless, evtRecv is maintained in WindView 2.0 for your convenience. You might choose to use evtRecv in the following circumstances:

The evtRecv tool is installed as a separate application in the Tornado suite by the SETUP program. You can start evtRecv in the same way as any other installed application on your host. For example, the most common ways to start evtRecv are the following:

Running evtRecv on UNIX

The evtRecv tool attempts to bind to host TCP/IP port 6164. If this port is already in use (for example, if WindView is listening to this port), evtRecv exits with an error status. In this case, you can use the -p flag to specify another port number.


*

NOTE: If evtRecv uses any port other than 6164, you must inform the target of the port number by changing the port number in the Control Properties dialog box.

Start event logging by pressing the button, then start the target application.

By default, the collected raw event log is saved to the host file eventLog.wvr. You can change this name by starting evtRecv with the -o flag; note that if you do not specify the .wvr suffix, evtRecv adds this suffix to the file.

When you stop logging by pressing , the host-target connection is closed and the evtRecv process exits. You can now import this event log into the WindView view graph using Open from the main Tools menu.

Running evtRecv on Windows

The Event Data Receiver Dialog Box

When evtRecv executes, its main window is the Event Data Receiver dialog box (Figure 8-8). Normally, this window opens when you start evtRecv, indicating that it is ready to receive target connections. However, if the socket where evtRecv expects to receive target connections is not available, the Setup dialog box opens first; see The evtRecv Setup Dialog Box for more information.

When the Event Data Receiver dialog box first opens, the list of event-log files is blank, and the two target information fields are not filled in; evtRecv fills in this information automatically when a target connects to it and begins transmitting data. If evtRecv has accepted connections from multiple targets simultaneously, the target-information fields reflect the most recent connection, unless one of the log files in the list is selected. To see the target name and IP address for any connection, select the corresponding log file from the list.

Figure 8-8:  Event Data Receiver Dialog Box (evtRecv)


 

The Status column in the list of log files indicates the state of the connection to the target for that particular event log. The Status column shows the following states:

READ
Data is arriving from this target.

WRITE
Data has arrived, and is being recorded on file.

WAIT
Waiting for next batch of event data.

DONE
Event stream has ended.

Because evtRecv is a passive receiver of event data, normally the data stream ends only when you stop data collection by clicking the Stop button in the Control window or when the target application calls wvOff( ) if it was started with wvOn( ) (see C. Library and Subroutine Reference). However, you can also stop data collection interactively for the currently selected log file, by clicking the Stop button in the Event Data Receiver dialog box.

You can use the Remove button to stop displaying information for the currently selected log file in the Event Data Receiver dialog box, after the connection is shown with status DONE. (Removing a log file from this list does not delete the log file.)

Start event logging with the Start button in the Control window or with wvOn( ), then start the target application. Close the host-target connection by clicking the Stop button in the Control window or by invoking wvOff( ) ( ) on the target.

The evtRecv Setup Dialog Box

By default, evtRecv saves event data to log files named after the target, and it accepts connections over TCP port 6164. You can change these and other related parameters by clicking the Setup button, which displays the dialog box shown in Figure 8-9

Port Number

The event port number is the host TCP/IP port over which either WindView or evtRecv listens for event data from the upload task, tWVUpload. WindView negotiates with tWVUpload on the selected target for an event port number, starting at TCP port 6164.

By contrast, evtRecv listens passively for connections from any target on the network, but on a particular port. The default event port number for evtRecv is also 6164; if your target uses a different event port, you must specify the port number explicitly in the Port Number field of the evtRecv Setup dialog box. To specify the port number on the target, use the Control Properties dialog box.

Log Files

The remaining controls in the evtRecv Setup dialog box allow you to control where and how to save log files for incoming event data.

The evtRecv application is designed to run for extended periods, collecting multiple event logs. It can collect event logs either simultaneously (from different targets), or serially (whether from one target or from many). To distinguish multiple log files from one another, evtRecv names its log files using the following pattern:

path\basename.num.wvr

path\
The directory where evtRecv saves log files. You can fill in the path name in the Log Path text box, or click the button to the right of that text box to bring up the Select log path dialog box (Figure 8-10), a directory-tree browser.

The default for path is a directory named \tmp or \temp, if either of those exists; otherwise, the default is taken from the environment variables TMP or TEMP, if either is defined.  

basename
If you check Use Target name as Logfile Base, the network name of each target transmitting data becomes the first segment of the corresponding log-file name. Otherwise, you can specify the basename portion of all log-file names for an evtRecv session by filling in the Logfile Base text box.

.num
This segment is a monotonically increasing integer that distinguishes multiple log files. You cannot specify this segment, but you can influence where it begins: if you check the Overwrite Existing Files check box, the evtRecv session begins numbering its log files at 1 even if that means it must overwrite a file from a previous evtRecv session. (However, if you check Overwrite Existing Files after your evtRecv session has begun accumulating files, the sequence numbering is not reset, although the checkbox still allows evtRecv to overwrite an older file when its name coincides with a new one.)

.wvr
This extension identifies the log files as WindView event logs.

You can import an event log into WindView with the Open command in the main File menu.