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Product: Cluster Server Guides   
Manual: Cluster Server 4.1 Bundled Agents Reference Guide   

NIC Agent

Monitors the configured NIC. If a network link fails, or if a problem arises with the device card, the resource is marked FAULTED. The NIC listed in the Device attribute must have an administrative IP address, which is the default IP address assigned to the physical interface of a host on a network. This agent does not configure network routes or administrative IP addresses.

VERITAS supports Auto-port Aggregation (APA) with the NIC and IP agents.

Before you use this agent, verify that the NIC has the correct administrative IP address and subnet mask.

Entry Point

  • Monitor---Tests the network card and network link. Pings the network hosts or broadcast address of the interface to generate traffic on the network. Counts the number of packets passing through the device before and after the address is pinged. If the count decreases or remains the same, the resource is marked FAULTED.

State Definitions

  • ONLINE---Indicates that the NIC is working.
  • FAULTED---Indicates that the NIC has failed.
  • UNKNOWN---Indicates that the configuration is incorrect.

Type Definition


type NIC (
static str ArgList[] = { Device, NetworkType, PingOptimize,
NetworkHosts}

 static int OfflineMonitorInterval = 60
 static str Operations = None
 str Device
 str NetworkType = "ether"
 int PingOptimize = 1
 str NetworkHosts[]
)

Required Attribute

Required Attribute Description, Type and Dimension, Default, and Example

Device

Name of the NIC.

Optional Attributes

Optional Attribute Description, Type and Dimension, Default, and Example

NetworkHosts

List of hosts on the network that are pinged to determine if the network connection is alive. Enter the IP address of the host, instead of the HostName, to prevent the monitor from timing out. DNS causes the ping to hang. If more than one network host is listed, the monitor returns ONLINE if at least one of the hosts is alive.

  • Type and dimension: string-vector
  • Example: NetworkHosts = { "166.96.15.22" , "166.97.1.2"}

NetworkType

Type of network. VCS currently only supports Ethernet (ether).

PingOptimize

Number of monitor cycles to detect if configured interface is inactive.

A value of 1 optimizes broadcast pings and requires two monitor cycles.

A value of 0 performs a broadcast ping during each monitor cycle and detects the inactive interface within the cycle.

Sample Configurations

With Network Hosts


 NIC groupx_lan0 (
  Device = lan0
  NetworkHosts = { "166.93.2.1", "166.99.1.2" }
  )
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Product: Cluster Server Guides  
Manual: Cluster Server 4.1 Bundled Agents Reference Guide  
VERITAS Software Corporation
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