Common Settings, Network

The Common Settings apply to all capture channels.  Once these settings have been specified, OK or Apply should be clicked.  This tab defines up to 999 network capture channels that are specified using a grid.

Merge Channels

When capturing data from multiple sources, one capture channel is needed for each separate source.  For instance, if GPS data is being captured from 10 vehicles, at least 10 TCP/IP Server channels must be created.

To ease administration and set-up, one or more Merge Channels may be set-up combining or consolidating captured data from multiple channels, allowing all data to be displayed in a single window, written to a single log file, and added to a database using a single connection instead of one for each channel.  One record at a time is merged, which may be one or more lines depending on the capture channel 'Line or Record End' setting (there is no record setting for merge channels).  Merge Capture Name are a subset of the network or serial Capture Name, so in the screen capture above the channels named 'TCP Server 1468/1',  'TCP Server 1468/2', etc, are merged to a new channel named 'TCP Server 1468'.

 
Grid Control Buttons

There are five buttons used to manipulate the Network grid:

For a refresh install, a new blank row is automatically created.  Note that the Network grid scrolls horizontally to show more columns.  To add or edit the grid, click on the required box and an edit control of some sort will appear, perhaps a drop down box arrow, an edit field or numeric up/down arrows.  Once the edit is complete, click on another box to ensure the edit is saved, losing focus from the grid causes the last edit to be cancelled.

Capture Name

The Capture Name uniquely identifies this capture channel, and is displayed on the main window tabs and in the information logs.  It may optionally be added to each captured line and may be used as part of the file name for capture logs.  Generally, the name should be as short as possible, while meaningfully describing the purpose of the channel.  Note Capture Names must be unique for Serial Ports as well.

Enabled

The Enabled tick box determines whether this channel will be captured.  If unticked, the channel will not appear in the main window.  It’s typically used to temporarily disable a channel without deleting it.

IP Protocol

The IP Protocol is selected from a drop down box with the following options:

More information on protocols may be found in the Networking Tutorial.

If high speed data is being captured, the TCP/UDP buffer size may be increased, see Network Performance on the Capture Settings Network tab.

Service

The Service is selected from a drop down box with the following options:

Local IP Address

The Local IP Address is selected from a drop down box that will be filled with all the IP addresses allocated to the computer (at least one, often more on servers) and also 0.0.0.0 which means all IP addresses.  Local IP Address should generally be left as 0.0.0.0 for TCP and UDP Server, for TCP Client it only need to set specifically if the remote TCP Server is expecting connections from a specific IP.

Local IP Port

The Local IP Port must always be specified as non-zero for TCP and UDP Server, as a number between 1 and 65,536.  Typically it will be 514 for Syslog, 162 for SNMP.  Only one server can listen on the same port on the same PC, if a port is chosen that’s already being used by another application, the TCP or UDP server will fail to open.  For TCP Client, the port is generally left as zero so Windows chooses a random port, but may need to set specifically if the remote TCP Server is expected connections from a specific port.  If defining your own Local IP Port, use a high number between 10,000 and 65,000 to avoid conflicts with other applications.

Remote IP Address

For TCP and UDP Server, the Remote IP Address is generally left as 0.0.0.0, meaning any, so connections are accepted from any remote computer.  If multiple server channels are set-up listening on the same local IP address and port, the Remote IP Address may be used as a filter, so specific channels will only accept connections from specific remote IP addresses.  If the multiple server channels are set-up, the first channel must have a 0.0.0.0 Remote IP Address so it can accept connections from anywhere.

For TCP Client, the Remote IP Address must be set to that of the remote computer to which a connection should be opened.

Remote IP Port

For TCP and UDP Server, the Remote IP Port is generally left as 0.  If a Remote IP Address is specified to filter remote connections to this channel, the Remote IP Port may be specified as non-zero as well to further reduce the filtering to connections from that port.

For TCP Client, the Remote IP Port must be set to that of the TCP Server on the remote computer to which a connection should be opened.

Filter Information

Filter Information is currently used.

Retry Attempts

For TCP Client only, Retry Attempts specifies the number of connection attempts that should be made to the remote computer before failing.  Zero attempts means never stop, but keep retrying for ever, other the maximum attempts is 99.

Wait Seconds

For TCP Client only, Wait Seconds specifies the gap between a failed connection and the next retry attempt, with a minimum of 10 seconds and maximum of 300 seconds (five minutes).  Note a connection attempt takes a minimum of 10 seconds, but about 40 seconds if ping is disabled.  The more frequent the connection attempts, the more potential network traffic that is carried, but the lesser probability of lost data.  

Channel Id

The Channel Id is fixed data and can not be edited. Ids are allocated sequentially as new network channels are defined, but remain fixed if channels are re-ordered or renamed in the grid.  The Channel Id is used to identify settings in the configuration files comcap.config and comcap.current, ie [NET1], [NET2], etc.

Errors

When the OK and Apply buttons are clicked, the Network channels are checked and validated, and may result in the following errors: