Now, the installation is finished, the database and the web servers are running. Be sure that the STAT-service is installed and running on all servers you want to monitor. You'll be surprised, but when people are having trouble, in 90% of cases it is just forgetting to start the STAT-service. Once it's done, you are ready to open a web browser (doesn't matter if it is Java enabled or not) and connect to the dim_STAT web server. The first page contains some links to documentation, presentation, tool history, etc., but the link you'll need to click is "Main Page". As you already supposed, the Main Page will group all main actions ... and you're right! I will not present this action by action, but rather functionality by functionality, in order of operation. However, the shortest working cycle is probably still: Starting STAT collect Analyze/Monitor collecting data Stop STAT collect A few words about the User Interface. Don't be surprised if you will not find any "Back" button once you leave the Main Page. There isn't one! You have to use your browser's navigation back button for it. And it's not because I'm just lazy :)) The reason is simple: dim_STAT uses Java applets to present data in graphical mode, but it seems for every Java applet instance the web browser instantiates a dedicated JVM. And all JVMs will stay in the browser's memory until it will crash with an "out of memory" error. To prevent that, I unfortunately have to force you to use your browser's button. Since version 7.0 you'll see a small toolbar at the top of your page representing: - Currently used Database Name - Short links into Home/ Preferences/ Log Admin

ERROR: No X_ROOT configuration for SERVER

Sometimes, instead of the Main Page, you see this error message.

Don't worry, nothing wrong!! What is happening is that your DNS translation simply did not match the configuration settings. Go to the WebX home directory (ex: /opt/WebX) and open the "x.config" file in a text editor. Find the line containing your host name in the first column. Duplicate this line and replace in it your hostname:port pair as given by the string in the error message after "SERVER:". Save the file and try to connect again. It should work immediately!

Example: Error Message: "No X_ROOT configuration for SERVER: harms.France.Sun.COM:88"

• vi /opt/WebX/x.config
• duplicate the line with "harms:88"
• in the new line, replace "harms:88" with "harms.France.Sun.COM:88"
• save the file
• reload the Main Page in your browser

Note: X_ROOT is a one of WebX's configuration parameters. As WebX is an interpreter, there should be a way to protect it from "interpreting" something else than application pages (ex: /etc/passwd). X_ROOT gives WebX its main "root" directory, so that only pages in this specific directory tree can be executed, and nothing else.

Note: Since v.9.0 the pattern "*:*" is provided to accept any host name with any port number in case such a level of security is not required..


Web Browsers

Since version 7.0 you may use any web browser as long as it supports the PNG image format (true for nearly all available browsers).

However, if you prefer the interactive graphs from dim_STAT's Java Applet, you must have a Java plug-in configured. Here are a few notes about specific browser programs:



• FireFox - most stable web browser for today, works perfectly with Java applets and may be the best choice. Specially useful as it's able to keep all checkboxes remaining pre-selected even if you're reloading an active page ;-)
  
  
• Opera - seems to work fine since v.5 (and I'm using it a lot as an excellent alternative ;-))
  
  
• Konqueror - generally working out of the box, probably the best choice for KDE-lovers :-))
  
  
• Safari - works just fine out of the box, probably the best choice for Mac-lovers ;-))
  
  
• Mozilla - you should upgrade to at least to version 1.7. In previous versions there was a bug starting an applet before receiving all given parameters. Also, 1.7 and later is much faster compared to previous versions.
  
  
• IE - never used it myself, but it seems to work for customers, etc.

There are some other browsers out there, but as a general rule, if you see instead of the graphics an error message "Browser BUG", then you should either upgrade your browser or move on to another one. As well if you use only PNG graphs you will usually never meet any problem...