Advanced Features 
Advanced FeaturesOverview
VisualRoute Server
Reverse Trace Server
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| An advanced feature in VisualRoute Support Edition and Professional Support Edition is the ability to conduct a reverse trace route from a remote location. This allows support users to diagnose Internet performance between any two points on a network. |
To enable VisualRoute Server, go to Tools | Reverse Trace Server... in the application menu to open the 'Support Server' dialog window shown in figure 15.1.
Fig 15.1: Reverse Trace ServerChoose the IP address and port number you wish and the click Apply. Once you have customized these options then click 'Start' to start the Reverse Trace Server. When started the 'Test' button will become available and can be used to view the VisualRoute Remote Trace Website page (see figure 15.2 as an example).
Fig 15.2: Example Reverse Trace Server pageTo perform a reverse trace, direct the remote user to the IP address and port number specified in the Reverse Trace Server configuration (Server Administration settings as shown in figure 15.1). The remote user will be presented with a page similar to that shown in figure 15.2 (see note below on customizing the default page). By clicking on the hyperlink displayed in the web page served by VisualRoute, the remote user will begin the VisualRoute Remote Trace Agent download.
The file the remote user downloads by clicking on the hypertext link displayed in figure 15.2 is called 'helpdesk.exe'. The remote user needs to run this executable from their desktop system. When running, the VisualRoute Remote Trace application will appear on the remote user's desktop as shown in figure 15.3.
Fig 15.3: Remote Trace Dialog BoxAs soon as the VisualRoute Remote Trace agent is running and connected to the VisualRoute engine, the ability to trace from the remote agent location is available from the main VisualRoute GUI.
Fig 15.4a: Reverse Trace Agent connection for Support Edition
Fig 15.4b: Reverse Trace Agent connection for Professional Support EditionBy selecting the 'Use Reverse Trace Connection' check box (Support Edition shown in figure 15.4a) or selecting the desired user IP address from the 'Trace From' drop down (Professional Support Edition shown in figure 15.4b), the next trace performed will be from the selected user's machine.
Both the remote user and the support technician can disconnect at any time. When the support technician is connected to an end user, the end users details will appear in the 'Support Engine' section of fig 15.1 above. The support technician simply needs to click on the 'Disconnect User' button to disconnect from the VisualRoute Remote Trace agent. The remote user may disconnect from the VisualRoute Reverse Trace engine by selecting the 'Disconnect' button in the application window on their desktop (Fig. 15.3).
Deploying Remote Agents
A feature of the Professional Support Edition of VisualRoute is the ability to connect to more than one VisualRoute Remote Trace agent at a time. This feature can be used to deploy remote agents on any number of machines on a network to test connectivity on demand.
Setting up this service is the same as the standard Reverse Trace Server described above. Once the Reverse Trace Server has been setup, download and save a remote agent (helpdesk.exe) to the desired machines. To deploy the agent over the network either download an agent using the web interface from each machine (browse to the Reverse Trace Server ip address:port from each remote machine) or download one agent and copy it across the network.
Note: Because the VisualRoute engine digitally signs all agents that it creates, deployed Remote Trace agents can only connect to the engine that created and served the agent executable file. This provides a secure model for remote, anonymous connections.
Once the agents are running, go to the VisualRoute application interface and in the top right hand corner you will see a drop down menu saying 'Trace From' (Fig 15.5 below).
Fig 15.5: 'Trace From' drop down menuClicking the drop down menu will present a list of the remote agents that are running. They are identified by IP address and system name. Simply select an agent from the drop down menu and initiate a trace. The trace will be conducted from the remote agent and displayed within a new tab in the VisualRotue GUI. Disconnect any agent at any time by going into 'Reverse Trace Server...' in the Tools menu, select the desired agent and click on the 'Disconnect User' button.
Ping Grapher 
Ping Grapher is NOT available in VisualRoute Personal Edition. Ping Grapher offers the ability to measure a network device's latency continuously at specified intervals. Ping Grapher Server is available in the Business and Support editions only and allows for Ping Grapher functionality from the VisualRoute Server browser.
To access this feature, enter the desired IP address in the 'Address' text box and select the Ping Grapher icon (identified by the red circle in figure 16.1) from the menu bar. Alternately, open a new Ping Grapher tab by selecting 'New Plot' from the 'File' menu and then follow the previous instructions.
Fig 16.1: Ping Grapher IconThe Ping Grapher report will display in a tab as illustrated below in figure 16.2:
Fig 16.2: Ping Grapher DialogLatency to the requested device will be diplayed (in msec) across the graph. Packet loss is indicated by vertical red bars. To view the specific data sampled for any time interval, simply click on the plot and hold the mouse while dragging across the graph.
The bottom half of the Ping Grapher tab displays several options. If you have used Ping Grapher to measure the same domain/IP address before, use the first drop down selector (shown in figure 16.3) to select an historic data interval or create a new live plot. The second drop down selector defines the ping interval (also shown in figure 16.3) to be used. Valid selections are 5, 10, 20, 30, or 60 seconds.
Fig 16.3: Ping Grapher Options
Fig 16.4: Ping Grapher Options, ContinuedAs data gradually builds up, it will fill the entire plot area and will automatically scroll rightwards as new data is made available. To stop Ping Grapher, click on the 'Stop Plotting' button under the Options window. Change the zoom level displayed in the graph using the Zoom controls located at the right side of the Ping Grapher Options window. Both of these options are shown in igure 16.4.
Continuous Trace
An advanced feature in all editions except VisualRoute Personal Edition is the ability to continuously conduct a trace route to a specified address. This allows you to monitor for performance degradation that may occur over long periods of time.
The green recycling icon to the left of the Analysis text (Fig 17.1) opens the 'Traceroute Auto-Update Preferences' dialog shown in figure 17.2.
Fig 17.1: Continuous Trace featureTraceroutes can be run continuously by selecting the first option, 'Update traceroute continuously' and also checking the 'Use this setting for all future traceroutes' box to set the selected preference as the default for all traces. When a trace route is performed with the continuous option turned on, the trace will start again as soon as it has finished and will update every hop along the way. This feature allows you to continuously monitor an IP/URL.
Fig 17.2: Traceroute Auto-Update Preferences dialog
Traceroute History
An advanced feature in all editions except VisualRoute Personal Edition is the ability to save trace route analysis in a history file. This allows you to reference previous traces to aid in the analysis of ongoing problems or to identify changes in service levels.
History files are automatically created each time a trace is run. To access a history file, simply select File | Open Traceroute... from the menu (see figure 18.1). This will open the Load Traceroute dialog box as shown in figure 18.2. The historical traceroute results will be opened as a seperate tab in the main VisualRoute GUI.
Fig 18.1: Open Traceroute... dialog box
Fig 18.2: Load Traceroutes selection dialog box
Comparing Traceroutes
An advanced feature in VisualRoute Business Edition, Support Edition, Professional Support Edition and Server Edition is the ability to compare two traceroutes side by side. This allows you to compare things like average response time and packet loss between two different times.
To compare traceroutes go to the File menu and choose Compare Traceroutes... to open the Compare Traceroutes dialog box (Fig 19.1).
Fig 19.1: Compare Traceroutes selection dialog boxFrom this dialog, choose the two traceroutes to be compared. First choose the trace name from the drop down menus. In this example the same destination host is being used (i.e., www.visualware.com). Then choose the trace times to be used in the comparison. In this example, traces from two different timestamps on the same day are used. Once the traceroutes have been selected, click the 'OK' button. The traceroute results will appear as shown below in figure 19.2:
Fig 19.2: Comparing Traceroutes windowThe two traceroutes appear side by side with a special analysis detail in the Analysis window at the top of the VisualRoute GUI. Hop deviations appear in red as shown in the above image. Node names and network names do not appear in a comparison, however this information can be displayed for a single traceroute by going to the File menu and choosing Open Traceroute (see the Traceroute History section for more detail) to view the historical trace data.
Custom Traceroute Maps
A typical Trace Route Map section looks like figure 20.1. For more information on how to interpret map results, please see the section on Trace Route Maps.
Fig 20.1: Trace Route Map
Adding a Custom Map to VisualRoute
An advanced feature available in the Business Edition, Support Edition, Professional Support Edition and Server Edition is the ability to add a custom made map to use for traceroutes.
Custom IP-to-location maps within VisualRoute can be of several types. For example, custom geography-based maps can provide a more detailed map of your specific country or even province(s) within a country such as a US state. Maps can also be diagram-based to represent, for example, a corporate private network.
For geography based maps the user can define the latitude/longitude parameters that define the boundaries so VisualRoute can plot the geo-locations accurately. For diagram based maps VisualRoute provides the means for the user to easily define where on the map IP addresses exist so when a trace is done across a business private network VisualRoute will accurately find the various routers, server and other device symbols.
In addition to latitude and longitude coordinates for geography maps and IP locations for diagram maps, VisualRoute allows users to define a zoom range (from <1:1 to >1:1). This is useful if you want to build a network map that covers a number of global network locations. Zooming then allows you to focus on the final destination with a good level of detail. This obviously allows you to map the starting network detail and the ending network detail in a single diagram map.
VisualRoute allows the user to make use of the custom maps in a number of valuable ways:
Automated Map : In automated mode VisualRoute will select the map dynamically based on the final location. So for example, if the final location is the datacenter in Chicago VisualRoute will select the datacenter map the represents the Chicago network. Obviously a user diagram map can contain multiple locations and the zoom option makes this easy to view.
Default Map : In default mode VisualRoute will always use the map set as the default map. On first install this is set to the VisualRoute World map but the user can elect to change this to another user defined map/diagram. In all traces the default map is shown when a trace starts and will remain in view until an automated map for the destination is found.
Manual: Manual map selection is available anytime regardless of the other map selection options. A user can manually select another map after a trace has completed. As an example a user can trace to the Sydney datacenter and use the default world map to see the Internet routing between New York and Sydney. Then the user can switch maps to the Sydney corporate network map (or may be an Australia/Sydney only map) to examine the destination network in much greater detail. In fact the user may switch between several detailed maps.
To add a custom map to VisualRoute you can either go to the 'Maps' menu and click 'Add Map...' or you can use the shortcut; Ctrl-Shift-M. This will open the dialog box below in figure 20.2:
The first section of the dialog box is to enter a name for the map you are adding. This will be used to reference your map when using it in VisualRoute. Next is to add the map itself; to do this click the 'Select' button which lets you browse your machine for the map you want to add.
The second section has two options, the first option is for when your map is another world map. You need to select this option if you are providing a world map onto which any latitude/longitude may be plotted. If you are offering for example a building plan, uncheck this box and only prespecified IP's/locations will be plotted. The second option is whether you want your map to be zoomable, with this option checked you will be asked to choose the zoom levels you want to allow, 1.0 being the normal zoom.
Selecting a Map
Once you have added your map the next task is to implement the map into VisualRoute, to do this you can either go to the Maps menu and click on Select Map or you can use the shortcut; Ctrl-M. You will see a dialog box like the on below in figure 20.3:
Fig 20.3: Select Map dialog boxThe select map is as simple as it looks. By clicking on the drop down menu you will see your custom map in the list, select it then click ok to use it with your next trace. If you want your new map to be used for every trace without having to keep selecting it then check the 'Set as Default' option in the Select Map dialog box. If you want to edit your map you can click the 'Edit Map' button when your custom map is selected in the drop down menu. This will take you to the 'Add Map' dialog box where you can make the changes you want.
Adding Addresses to a Custom Map
Now you have created your custom map and added it to VisualRoute you will need to set specified IP's to different locations on your custom map (this is only needed if you have NOT checked the 'This is a map of the world' option in the Add Maps dialog box). To do this you need to go to the Maps menu and click 'Add Addresses to Map...'. This will bring up the dialog box below in figure 20.4:
Fig 20.4: Add Map Points Dialog BoxThe first thing you have to do when adding points to a custom map is to choose the custom map you want to add points to. To do this simply select the map you want from the drop down list. Note if you have not added a map this dialog box will be non functional as you cannot add points to the default VisualRoute map. Once you have chosen your map it will appear in the image space at the bottom of the dialog box. The next section requires you to add your points; to do this you need to click the 'New Rule' button which will launch the dialog box below in figure 20.5 (the same dialog appears when you want to edit a rule):
Fig 20.5: Add Map Point Dialog BoxFirst of all, you need to specify an IP (the type of valid entrys are shown in the example in the image). Simply type the IP address you want into the 'Enter IP address range' and then you need to specify where this IP should reside on your custom map. To do this simply use your cursor to click the map in the correct place. Notice that the coordinates will now appear in the 'x' and 'y' text boxes just above the map. If you want to set a location for every IP address not specified then enter the IP address 0.0.0.0/0 then choose a location on the map. Once you are done specifying an IP address then click 'Ok' to return to the 'Add Map Points' dialog box where you can add, remove or edit more rules.
Using a custom map when using VisualRoute may look something like the image below in figure 20.6. You can see which machines a trace goes through in a network situation and when it leaves the network through the router etc.
Fig 20.6: Custom Map Trace
