Using the System Manager

The System Manager can monitor server status of any RealServer for which the server.cfg file is accessible.


Windows

In the Windows environment, System Manager provides a graphical display of server information.

Starting the System Manager

  1. Windows 95 and NT 4.0: Click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Real Server, and click RealServer System Manager.
    Windows NT 3.51: Double-click the Real Server program group and double-click the System Manager icon.
  2. On the File menu, click Open.
  3. Click the name of the Server that you want to monitor and click OK.
  4. On the Server menu, click Clients, Files, or Graph to display the type of information you want.

System Manager screen shot


Monitoring Performance

System Manager includes windows that display clients currently connected, files being played, and a graph of all connections for the past two minutes.

Clients Window

You can view the following information in the Clients window:

Column Description
Type The type of client connected: Player, Monitor (System Manager), or Encoder.
File Being Played Name of the file being played from your RealServer.
Domain Name The domain name or IP address of the client computer. To toggle between IP address and domain name, click Preferences on the Options box, select the Client View tab, and check the Do DNS Lookups box.
Elapsed Time The length of time that the client has been connected to that file since the System Manager has been attached to the Server. This information is also available in the Access LogAccess Log.

Use the Clients window in System Manager to determine how many clients connect to your site simultaneously. Multiply this number by 10 to 20 Kbps to determine how much bandwidth your RealServer is using.

If you want the Clients window to update continuously, select Preferences from the Options menu, select the Client View tab and check the Update Continuously box.

Files Window

The Files window tells which files are being accessed and the number of times each file is being played. This helps you determine which files are most and least popular, which could help you decide what new files to add or remove to improve the popularity of your site.

Column Description
File Name of the file currently being played.
Current Number of clients currently connected to that file.
Total Total number of connections made to this file since the System Manager was started.

If you want the Files window to update continuously, click Preferences on the Options menu, select the File View tab and check the Update Continuously box.

Graph Window

The Graph window gives a graphical interpretation of selected connections made to your Server in the past two minutes. To control what information appears on the graph, select Preferences on the Options menu, select the Graph View tab and check the boxes for the statistics you want to display.

Resetting the Peak Usage

The Peak value in the System Manager display is maintained until you restart the Server or manually reset the value.

To reset the Peak value, click ResetPeak on the Server menu.


UNIX

System Manager is a command line program (rssm) under UNIX. It does not have a graphical interface. System Manager can monitor a Server running on any platform. Information provided by System Manager includes the number and status of Player connections, System Manager connections, Unknown connections (connections currently being negotiated with the Server), and Total connections. System Manager can also be used to edit configuration file settings.

Using the rssm Program

System Manager runs in two modes: interactive and non-interactive. When the System Manager is in the non-interactive mode, information is automatically appended to STDOUT every 5 minutes, unless that time span is modified by the -l command. The System Manager accepts commands from the command line; however, it does not prompt for them.

Syntax

rssm [-v] [-l <update>] [-p <password>] [-c] [-i] [-k] <hostname[:port]>

where:

-v Displays the version information of the System Manager. This includes the platform, build and release tags used to identify a particular release.
-l <update> Sets the update period for output to the screen to update seconds.
-p <password> Provides the password required by System Manager to connect to the Server. If this option is not used the System Manager prompts for the password. This feature is not secure. The password is easily accessible to knowledgeable searchers. The password is required each time you want to start monitoring a Server. You can include -p <password> in the rssm command line in automatic monitoring scripts to avoid having to enter the password interactively.
-c Connects to the server to verify it is still accepting connections and then exits. Prints a message if the connection fails and the exit status is non zero.
-i Starts interactive mode and permits entry of the commands listed in the command section.
-k Does DNS lookups on incoming IP addresses to translate them to full domain names. This command can slow down responses on System Manager. If you are experiencing delays in System Manager information or in response to commands, make sure that this feature is turned off.
<hostname> To connect System Manager to a RealServer, set hostname to the DNS name or IP address of the RealServer. If the server is running on a port other then 7070, specify the port number.

Example

rssm -i -p mypassword 203.70.154.100:7070


Interactive Commands

The interactive mode is started with the -i command, which enables the System Manager to print prompts and accept commands from the command line.

After starting System Manager in interactive mode by using the -i command-line option, you can enter any of the following interactive commands at the System Manager prompt (>):

Command Function
c Displays the current configuration after it has been retrieved using the t command.
e Resets peak usage value.
g Displays the time that the peak usage value was last reset.
h or ? Prints a list of commands.
i Prints the Server's version number and platform.
k Begins collating hostname information for connected clients by doing reverse DNS lookups on the IP numbers provided by the Server.
l Provides the current list of connected clients.
n Modifies a Server configuration variable.
o Prints # of Players, System Managers, unknowns, and total connections to STDOUT every five minutes, or the number of seconds specified by the -l option on the command line. This command can be toggled to start and stop.
p Prints Server license information.
s Prints a single line of summarized status information.
u Continuous display. Updates whenever a client status changes.
x Exit the program.

System Manager displays the information about clients connected to the Server in the following format:

<client> <name>

where <client> is the type of client connected (Monitor or Player) and <name> is the domain name or IP address of that client.

For example, a client listing might look like:

monitor 204.71.154.93

Player 204.71.153.24

If you prefer to receive System Manager information in a report, use the -l option and append the output to a file. To do this, use the following command:

rssm -l <seconds> <hostname>[:port] >> monitor.txt

where <seconds> is the number of seconds between reports, <hostname> is the name of the computer you are collecting data from, and monitor.txt is the name of the report that the information is appended to.

Example

To monitor a Server in interactive mode, with updates every 20 seconds and fully qualified host names for clients, use the following command:
rssm -l 20 -k -i yourServer:7070

© 1997 RealNetworks, Inc.