Enhancements to Release 1.0 of the IBM 8371

NetBIOS Monitoring Commands

Enter netbios at the ASRT> prompt to display the NetBIOS monitoring prompt. For example:

ASRT> netbios
NetBIOS Support User Console
NetBIOS>

Use these NetBIOS monitoring commands to access the detailed monitoring menus for NetBIOS filtering parameters that are applicable to all the bridge instances in the switch.

Table 10. NetBIOS Monitoring Commands

Command	Function
? (Help)	Displays all the commands available for this command level or lists the options for specific commands (if available).
Disable	Disables duplicate frame filtering and route caching.
Enable	Enables duplicate frame filtering and route caching.
List	Displays various NetBIOS name cache configuration information.
Set	Configures parameters for name caching, duplicate frame filtering and frame type filtering.
Exit	Returns you to the previous command level.

Disable

Disables duplicate frame filtering or route caching.

Syntax:

disable

duplicate-filtering

 

route-caching

duplicate-filtering

Disables duplicate frame filtering for bridging. You cannot disable duplicate frame filtering for DLSw traffic.

Example: disable duplicate-filtering

Duplicate frame filtering is           OFF

route-caching

Disables route caching for bridging and DLSw. Route caching is the process of converting broadcast frames to specifically routed frames (SRFs) using the entries in the NetBIOS name cache.

Example: disable route-caching

Route caching is                       OFF

Enable

Enables duplicate frame filtering or route caching.

Syntax:

enable

duplicate-filtering

route-caching

duplicate-filtering

Enables duplicate frame filtering for bridging. Duplicate frame filtering is always enabled for DLSw. You cannot enable and disable it.

Example: enable duplicate-filtering

Duplicate frame filtering is            ON

route-caching

Enables route caching for bridging and DLSw. Route caching is the process of converting broadcast to specifically routed frames (SRFs) using the NetBIOS name cache.

Example: enable route-caching

Route caching is                        ON

List

Displays various types of cache entries, filter configuration, general configuration information, or statistics on other things.

Syntax:

list

filters

general

filters

Displays whether or not frame type filtering is on or off for bridging. Use the set filters command to turn these filters on or off.

Example: list filters

Bridge name conflict filtering is       OFF
Bridge general bcast filtering is       OFF
Bridge trace control filtering is       OFF

general

Displays the current NetBIOS caching and filtering configuration.

Example: list general

Bridge-only Information:
 
Bridge duplicate filtering is          OFF
Bridge duplicate frame filter t/o      1.5 seconds
 
Route caching is                       OFF
Significant characters in name          15
Max local name cache entries           500
Duplicate frame detect timeout         5.0 seconds
Best path aging timeout               60.0 seconds
Reduced search timeout                 1.5 seconds
Unreferenced entry timeout            5000 minutes

Set

Sets name caching parameters, turns frame type filtering on or off for bridging, adjusts duplicate frame filtering timers and frame retry timers.

Syntax:

set

cache-parms

filters

general

cache-parms

Sets name caching parameters that apply to bridging or switching.

Example: set cache-parms

Significant characters in name [15]?
Best path aging timeout value in seconds [60.0]?
Reduced search timeout value in seconds [1.5]?
Unreferenced entry timeout value in minutes [5000]?
Max nbr local name cache entries [500]?
Max nbr remote name cache entries [100]?
 
Cache parameters set

Significant characters in name

Determines whether the router considers 15 or 16 characters when it looks up the NetBIOS name. If you enter 15, the router ignores the 16th character. If you select 16, the router includes the 16th character when it looks up cache entries.

The default is 15.

Best path aging timeout

Amount of time the router considers the address and route for a name cache entry to be the best path to that station. When this timer expires, the router deletes the name cache entry and attempts to discover a new best path for the NetBIOS name.

To determine the best path, the router considers transmission time between nodes on all possible routes connecting those nodes, as well as largest frame size. The router does not consider a path suitable if it cannot accommodate the largest NetBIOS frame that could be transmitted over the path.

The default is 60 seconds. The range is 1.0 to 100000.0 seconds.

Reduced search timeout

When the router receives a Name-Query, Status-Query, or Datagram during the timeout period, it carries out a search based on current NetBIOS name cache information.

If the router receives a duplicate frame after this timer expires, it assumes the previous route is not longer valid and it widens its search. The router forwards the duplicate frame to both bridges and DLS. DLS broadcasts the corresponding SSP message to all possible DLS partners.

The default is 1.5 seconds. The range is 1.0 to 100.0 seconds.

Unreferenced entry timeout

The router keeps a name that is not referenced in its cache for this length of time before deleting it. If the cache fills up, the router removes entries sooner.

The default is 5000 minutes. The range is 1 to 100 000 minutes.

Max nbr local name cache entries

Maximum number of locally-learned entries the router saves in the name cache.

The default is 500. The range is 100 to 30 000. You can lower this value to save router memory. To optimize memory usage, processor usage, and the amount of broadcast traffic, set the number of local name cache entries as close as possible to the total number of NetBIOS stations (servers and clients) that are active on this router's local bridge network.

Max nbr remote name cache entries

Maximum number of remotely-learned entries, group name entries, and unknown entries that the router saves in the name cache.

The default is 100. The range is 100 to 30 000. You can lower this value to save router memory. To optimize memory usage, processor usage, and the amount of broadcast traffic, set the number of remote name cache entries to the number of remote NetBIOS servers that are to be accessed by NetBIOS clients on this router's local bridge network, plus about 25%.

filters

Turns frame-type filtering for bridging on or off.

Example: set filters

Filter Name Conflict frames? [No]: y
Name conflict filtering is             ON
Filter General Broadcast frames? [No]:
General broadcast filtering is         OFF
Filter Trace Control frames? [No]:
Trace control filtering is             OFF

general

Sets the duplicate frame timeout, duplicate frame-detect timeout, and the command frame retry count and timeout.

Example: set general

ATTENTION! Setting Duplicate Frame Filter Timeout to zero...
disables duplicate frame checking!
Duplicate frame filter timeout value in seconds [1.5]?
Duplicate frame detect timeout value in seconds [5.0]?
General parameters set

Duplicate frame filter timeout

Applies only to bridged traffic if duplicate filtering is enabled. During this timeout period, the router filters all duplicate frames it receives.

The range is 0.0 to 100.0 seconds. Zero disables duplicate frame checking. The default is 1.5 seconds.

Duplicate frame-detect timeout

Applies to both bridged and DLSw traffic. Amount of time during which the router saves entries in its duplicate frame filter database. When this timer expires, the router creates new entries for new frames that it receives.

The range is 0.0 to 100.0 seconds. The default is 5 seconds.

Command frame retry count

Applies only to DLSw traffic.

Number of duplicate NetBIOS UI frames the target DLSw router sends to its locally attached LAN. These frames are sent at intervals specified by the command frame retry timeout.

The range is 0 to 10. The default is 5.

Command frame retry timeout

Applies only to DLSw traffic. This is the interval at which a neighbor DLSw router retries sending duplicate NetBIOS UI frames to its local bridge network.

The range is 0.0 to 10.0 seconds. The default is 0.5 seconds.