============================================================================ AST RESEARCH, INC. SOFTWARE BULLETIN # 0222 12-5-95 ============================================================================ PERCEPTA HOST AGENTS Production Release: 1.21 Available: November, 1995 Revision: A Part Number Description File Name 911580-036 Diskette 1 of 1 11580036.EXE This is an update to the Percepta Host Agents. File 11580036.EXE can be found on AST's BBS (817) 230-6850. AST's BBS supports modem speeds up to 28.8k bps. The above file will also be posted on: CompuServe Go ASTSUPPORT AST Worldwide Web Site http://www.ast.com This release is intended to produce one Percepta Host Agents diskette. The diskette contains the NLMs and the MIB files for Netware. These NLM files are used for Percepta Server Management Software. This release is a single diskette containing Percepta Host Agents for the Netware and Windows NT-Server Operating Systems. The diskette contains the SNMP Percepta MIBs for the product. The Host Agents run on an AST server for the Percepta Server Management Software. The Production Release of the 1.21 ersion of Host Agents diskette is primarily to include the new ASTDFS.DLL host agent for the DPT 3224 Disk Array Controller. This is the first production release of the Host Agents for the Windows NT system, to be included with Manhattan G, P and V servers. Platforms and hardware support This version of the Host Agents Diskette is intended for Manhattan G, P and V series systems, and the SE and MTE server products only. New Features This release includes a new host agent for Windows NT servers called "ASTDFS.DLL". This agent provides information about the DPT 3224 disk array controller, and alerting for the events occurring with DPT 3224 Disk arrays or attached disk drives. This agent requires the latest Disk Array Storage Manager software. The part numbers for this software are 911709-036, -037, -038 and -039, a four diskette set. Files 11709036.EXE, 11709037.EXE, 11709038.EXE, and 11709039.EXE are located on AST's BBS. For additional information, see Software Bulletin # 0207. One program included, with the Storage Manager software is the program called DPTENGNT.DLL. The new agent and the DPT Engine software will check for the lowest acceptable level of associated software and firmware to prevent any use of old software known to cause intermittent failures. The DPTENGNT.DLL program for Windows NT must be revision v1.F0 or later. This version of the DPT Engine is included in the just released software noted above. If the ASTDFS program detects an earlier DPTENGNT version, an entry will be made in the NT Event log for your information, and the ASTDFS host agent will not load. The DPTENGNT program will also check for the latest DPT Firmware. If the DPTENGNT program detects firmware earlier than 7.BQ, it will not load. In this event an entry will be made in the NT event log for your information as well. It is recommended that you obtain the latest released DPT 3224 firmware, which is 7CG. AST has qualified this firmware for use in the Manhattan line of servers. Contact AST Technical Support at (800) 727-1278 to upgrade your system. If the ASTDFS agent is not loaded, you will not be able to view the disk array controller information from the Percepta Management Console. The Percepta 1.20 and 1.21 Host Agents both contain the ASTDFS program for the Netware Operating Systems. The ASTDFS program works in conjunction with the ASTDAD program to provide the complete disk array solution. Please see the "README.1ST" file on the Host Agents Diskette which may include additional information about this release. Errata 1. Locating Servers running the Windows NT Host Agents You may experience a problem finding Windows NT Servers from the Percepta Server Manager. The Percepta Management console software detects AST servers advertising Percepta services. When he servers which are running the Percepta Host Agents advertise, entries are made into the Netware bindery. AST servers running Windows NT and the Percepta Host Agents are only listed in the Server List if there is at least one other server on the net which is running Netware, to provide the bindery services. If your network does not contain a Netware server, you may alternately install File and Print Services for Netware on a Windows NT server, to provide the bindery services. Without either of these provisions, the Percepta Server Manager will not locate nor list the Windows NT servers running the Percepta Host Agents. 2. RAID information for the DPT 3224 controller. As noted above, the Host agent for the 3224 controller requires the latest released Storage Manager software and firmware noted above. Without this software, no Disk Array information is provided for the Percepta Management Console. Production Release: 1.20 Available: May, 1995 Production Release 1.20 of the Host Agents diskette is primarily for the initial release of the Host Agents for the Windows NT environment. The release contains updated Netware agents with a consistent revision control for ease of determining if the Host Agents are up to date. This version in particular will not be phased in to the Manhattan P/V and G system shipments. This release is for the Bulletin Board only. This version of the Host Agents Diskette is intended for Manhattan G, P and V series systems. NEW FEATURES The initial release of Host agents for Windows NT systems. An automatic Setup utility is provided for installation of the Host Agents for the Windows NT environment. ERRATA 1) This release does not contain an Agent for the DPT Disk array in the Windows NT environment. A subsequent release will contain that data. 2) The NT host agents must be run in a mixed environment network where at least one Novell server is running to provide the bindery services. If the NT Host Agents are run in a pure Windows NT network environment, the Percepta Management console launcher will not locate the NT server. 3) The Netware subdirectory contains a program called ASTCMUPD.EXE. This program is run by the server each time the server is booted. The revision of this program was changed from 2.00 to 1.20 in this release. Even though this is not normal, we wanted to make this program match the general release of the Host Agents, rather than track a separate revision. Production Release: 1.12 Available: March, 1995 The Production Release of the 1.12 version of Host Agents diskette is primarily to release Plug-n-Play support and a new agent for the DPT Disk Array Controller. This version of the Host Agents Diskette is intended for Manhattan G, P, and V series systems, and the SE and MTE server products only. NEW FEATURES Variable size windows. This allows windows to be minimized, sized and maximized as needed by the user. Improved alert handling. All alert handling is done by the launcher. Dynamic update of graphic information. Production Release: 1.11 Available: October, 1994 Revision: A The Production Release of the 1.11 version of Host Agents diskette is primarily to add support for the Manhattan G series systems and is required for fixing a few problems with some NLMs for Manhattan P and V series systems. AST Cards NLM for the Board Survey. The ASTCARDS NLM was improved to output the results of the board survey. It now exports symbols required by the ASTSCSI NLM to obtain information regarding PCI boards. Added I/O Port information to the MIB. AST System NLM for System and Motherboard information. The ASTSYS NLM was changed to provide information about the Manhattan G system. It also now provides information to ASTCARDS regarding the physical slot number for PCI cards. A change was made to detect the presence of AST EBI signature. This change allows future BIOS versions to use the new signature. Due to use of Synchronize start, if the EBI BIOS signature was not detected, the NLM would not unload correctly. This has been fixed to allow the NLM to unload correctly when and EBI BIOS is not detected. AST CMOS Update program. The ASTCMUPD.EXE program, called AST CMOS Update Program was changed to revision 1.12. This program version detects when a BIOS feature is not supported correctly, and reports Serial and Parallel port addresses as unknown if the BIOS will not return the correct port address. ASTSCSI NLM. This NLM was modified to detect PCI SCSI controllers plugged into the system correctly. It was also improved to output the SCSI devices found in the system rather than displaying X's and -'s for present and missing devices. ASTSCSI no longer auto-loads any other NLM. The PERCEPTA.NCF file now loads each of the SCSI NLMs directly. This allows the Synchronize startup of NLMs and eliminating NLMs from loading that do not apply to a system. ASTEFS NLM. This NLM was changed to handle SCSI drive busy by retrying the last SCSI operation. Also when the Netware Driver does not complete an operation by the timeout value used by ASTEFS, the NLM will output timeout messages and continue waiting for the Netware driver to time out. Previously, the NLM could time out and not allow the Driver to complete the I/O normally. The NLM is synchronized to NLM loading so that the NLM will complete the scan of the SCSI busses while no other system I/O is occurring. This prevents SCSI bus scan messages from being output while other NLMs are loading. Production Release: 1.10 Available: September, 1994 Revision: A The Production Release of the 1.10 version of Host Agents diskette is required for fixing a few problems with some NLMs and to update the MIBs and NLMs for Percepta release 1.10. AST Cards NLM for the Board Survey. The ASTCARDS NLM was reporting EISA IRQ and DMA numbers off by one. This has been corrected. The ASTCARDS NLM output several error messages regarding access to memory ranges E0000 up on Netware 4.01 systems. This has been corrected to use PCI BIOS to locate devices correctly. ASTCARDS NLM was also updated to support standardized Physical Slot information according to the new MIB revision 1.01.00. AST System NLM for System and Motherboard information. The ASTSYS NLM was changed to provide information about the AUTO selection in the Serial and Parallel port configuration. This information is provided according to the new MIB revision 1.02.00. AST CMOS Update program. The ASTCMUPD.EXE program, called AST CMOS Update Program was changed to display the ASTCMUPD program revision, currently 1.10. An entry is now made to the ASTSNMP.INI file to indicate the revision of the ASTCMUPD program which created the INI file. This program was also modified to support reading the possible AUTO setting of the Serial and Parallel port configuration. This information is provided according to the new MIB revision 1.02.00. ASTMISC NLM. This NLM was modified to be a production version without the debug information. This reduced the NLM file size. Production Release: 1.02 Available: August, 1995 Revision: A This 1.02 version of Percepta is for Pre-Production use on Manhattan P and V series systems. It is also to provide updates to the AST Netware Host Agents for other platforms such as the SE and MTE servers. This release also includes the first release of the new NLMs for the Manhattan P and V series systems. ERRATA Please see the "README" file which may contain additional information about this release.