Establishing Connection

Establishing a connection with a TL1 device is the first step to manage any TL1 device. Once a connection is successfully established, you can send messages to the device and get responses. The TL1 Craft Interface is designed to handle multiple device connections at the same time. This is done by means of a Session Manager which manages all the TL1 connections. The tool is built over common Transport Provider Framework and supports multiple transport protocols such as TCP, Telnet, and Serial. You can also plug in your own transport protocol in the Craft Interface and send TL1 messages.

To establish a connection with the TL1 device, click the Open Session button from the Session menu or from the toolbar. The Open Session dialog is displayed as shown in the figure. Select the transport protocol such as TCP, Telnet, or Serial to communicate with the TL1 device and specify the connection properties. For example, you must specify the host and port in the case of TCP.

By default, the TL1 Craft Interface supports transport protocols such as TCP, Telnet, and Serial. But you can also plug in your own transport protocol in the craft interface to work with. The transport-related options specific to each protocol is discussed here.

In this case, you need to specify two mandatory parameters, Host and Port of the TL1 device where the agent is running. The default values for these parameters are given in the table.

In the case of Telnet, there are various options such as Host, Port, Command Prompt, Login Prompt, User Name, Password Prompt, Password, and Time out. The mandatory parameters are Host, Port, and Command prompt. The default values for these parameters are given in the table.

In the case of Serial (RS232), the options are Port, Baud rate, Flow control, Data bits, Stop bits, and Parity. These parameters should be properly specified based on the settings configured on the TL1 device. The default values for these parameters are given in the table.

Apart from the Transport Protocols supported, users can plug in their own transport protocol. Follow the steps given below to add your transport protocol for TL1 communication.

The table below lists the common options which can be used across all the transport protocols.

Parameters	Description
Mode	This can be either Normal or Craft. In Normal mode, messages are buffered in a queue, then parsed and sent to the application. In Craft mode, messages are given to the application directly without any processing on the session.
Connection Handler	Represents the interface ConnectionHandler. Users can do some special tasks while opening and closing the connection (such as login and logout).
Message Parser	Represents the interface TL1Parser. This interface parses the TL1 messages and generate message objects. By default, com.adventnet.tl1.parser.TL1MessageParser is implemented. You can also plug in your own parser implementation.
Message Formatter	Represents the interface MessageFormatter. This interface allows you to filter or format specific TL1 messages at runtime. Users can plug-in their own filter / formatter by implementing this interface. By default, it is null.
Message Rationalizer	Represents the interface MessageRationalizer. This interface allows you to upgrade messages based on the XML message definitions (command set) or filter specific TL1 messages. Users can plug in their own rationalizer by implementing this interface. By default, it's value is null.
Partial Message Accumulation	Option to provide or accumulate partial messages received from the device. If set to true, all partial messages are accumulated and given only after receiving a response with proper terminator (;).
Prefix and Suffix	Append special strings at the start and end of each TL1 message. This is optional and may not be applicable for all devices. The default prefix is \r and the suffix is null.

Parameters	Description
File Name	Represents the name of log file.
Pattern	Pattern indicates the order in which the log file name should exist. %n represents the log file name. %d represents the date at which the log file is generated. %t represents the time at which the log file is generated. %c represents the log file count generated for that particular connection. The date and time are optional in pattern.
Timestamp	Option to set the Timestamp in each log message. The time will be given in hh-mm-ss format.
Append File	Appends the log information to the same log file that was previously used by this connection.
Rollover Size	Maximum size of a log file after which a new log file will be created. The size should be given in bytes. You can give a value of 0 if you do not want log files to be created based on size.
Rollover Count	Maximum log file count for a particular device connection.
Rollover Time	Time that must be specified after which a new log file will be created. The time should be given in the hh-mm-ss format.
Rollover Interval	Interval that must be specified after which a new log file will be created. The interval should be given in milliseconds.

Parameters	Default Value
Host Name	localhost
Port Number	9099

Parameters	Default Value
Host Name	Null
Port	23
Command Prompt	$
Login Prompt	login:
User Name	Null
Password Prompt	Password:
Password	Null
Login Timeout	5000

Parameters	Default Value
Port	COM1
Baud Rate	9600
Flow Control	None
Stop bits	1
Data bits	8
Parity	None

Establishing a Connection with the TL1 Device