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General Description

The "Network Control Center" utility is used to configure, verify dedicated network interfaces and trace network activity for a CHARON network.

Click on the following menu entry, under the "Start" menu, to start the utility:

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Installation of CHARON network drivers

By default a CHARON network driver is automatically installed by the CHARON installation procedure.

When it is needed to install a modified driver, use the following procedure. Select "Install/Upgrade" and press "Next":

Select "Install/Upgrade CHARON NDIS driver" checkbox and press "Select":

Press "Browse":

Browse for the target "sripacket.inf" file (by default it is located in the "C:\Program Files\CHARON\Drivers\NDIS6_X.X.X.XXXXX" directory), select it and press "Open":

If the CHARON network driver has been acquired directly from STROMASYS, put it in a temporary directory and choose the "sripacket.inf" file from this directory in the dialog above.

Review the version of the driver and, if it is correct, press "Ok":

The Network Control Center will display the previous dialog with the path to the CHARON network driver. Press "Next" in the popup below to continue:

The utility will begin the CHARON network driver installation. If Windows Security asks you to confirm the driver installation, press "Install":

The driver installation will resume:

At the completion of the network installation procedure, the utility will display the following log:

Review the log, make sure it is correct. Save the log to a file by pressing "Save Log in file" in case the log file has to be sent to Stromasys Customer Support.

Select "Show detailed log" to display more detail.

Press "Finish" to exit.

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Deinstallation of the CHARON network driver

Start the utility and select "Install/Upgrade"; press "Next":

Select "Remove all CHARON Network Drivers" and press "Next":

The utility will report that the CHARON drivers have been removed:

Review the log for errors. Save the log to a file by pressing "Save Log in file" in case the log file has to be sent to Stromasys Customer Support.

Select "Show detailed log" to display more detail.

Press "Finish" to exit.

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Configuring the host network interfaces for CHARON

Start the utility and select "Configure NIC"; press "Next":

Select the host interface to be dedicated to CHARON (in the example below it is "Charon"), press "Dedicate adapter to CHARON":

Install and configure VLAN adapters, according to the vendor's User's Guide, if required. Select the VLAN adapter in the dialog box in the above example. A VLAN adapter is not configured differently, the same procedure should be followed.

The Network Control Center will dedicate the selected adapter to CHARON. Press "Next".

The next dialog helps to define the correct lines for the CHARON configuration file. Select the target emulated network adapter and press "Copy suggestions to clipboard":

It is possible to paste the content of the clipboard to the CHARON configuration file as shown in the example below:

...

load DE500BA/dec21x4x EWA interface=EWA0
load packet_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="(disabled)"
load packet_port/chnetwrk EWA0 interface="connection:Charon"

...

Press "Next" to see the log file:

Review the log for errors. Save the log to a file by pressing "Save Log in file" in case the log file has to be sent to Stromasys Customer Support.

Select "Show detailed log" to display more detail.

Press "Finish" to exit.

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Release of the host network interfaces

Start the utility and select "Configure NIC"; press "Next":

Select the interface to be released back to the host (in the example below it is "Charon"), press "Release adapter to HOST":

Press "Next" and review the log of this operation:

Select "Show detailed log" to display more detail.

Press "Finish" to exit.

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Troubleshooting the CHARON network interfaces configuration

Start the utility and select "Troubleshoot NIC dedicated for CHARON"; press "Next":

Select the target interface and press "Next":

Review the status of the interface:

In the example below, there is an issue with the host TCP/IP being enabled on the CHARON interface. Review the problem description, press "Fix the adapter configuration" and press "Next".

The utility will fix any issues and report a good status for the interface. Press "Next", the following dialog will appear:

The Network Control Center offers to check whether the DECnet address, to be used by CHARON, is unique on the network in this step. Enter the desired DECnet address, for the CHARON guest, and press "Next":

Once the checking is completed, if there are any issues, the utility will abort the test and display a log containing information about the issues found:

If no issues are found, the utility will offer to check the CHARON TCP/IP networking the same way:

Enter the IP address and subnet mask to be used by the CHARON guest, then press "Next":

The Network Control Center will display the log of the performed operations:

Select "Show detailed log" for more detail.

Press "Finish" to exit.

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Disable "offload" parameters

The Network Control Center is able to disable "offload" parameters for CHARON. It is highly recommended to disabel them to avoid any problems with TCP/IP networking under CHARON.

Start the utility and select "Disable TCP chimney offload for CHARON"; press "Next":

The "offload" parameters will be reset for all CHARON emulators.

Press "Finish" to exit.

Please note to restart the CHARON host to enable this settings.

More information on details of disabling TCP chimney offload is available in this article

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Monitoring the CHARON network activity

The Network Control Center is able to monitor CHARON network activity. This function is available only if CHARON is running.

Start the utility and select "Monitor CHARON NIC activity"; press "Next":

Select the network interface to monitor (it must be dedicated to CHARON); press "Next":

The utility will display statistics updated in a real time. Note, it is possible to record the statistics in a log file with a selected write interval.

Press "Next" button to stop the recording and to see the log of this operation:

Select "Show detailed log" for more detail.

Press "Finish" to exit.

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