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Network Error Warning System › NEWS Facilities

NEWS Facilities

NEWS provides NCL programming facilities, and commands for customization and diagnosis.

NCL Verbs and Procedures

NEWS provides NCL procedures, and NCL verbs and system variables, to perform different functions.

The following is a summary of NEWS NCL verbs and system variables:

&CNMALERT

Sends a CNM alert to a local or remote NEWS region for processing.

&CNMCLEAR

Clears any outstanding Response Units (RUs) which have been solicited by an &CNMSEND statement and not processed by an &CNMREAD statement.

&CNMCONT

Used in CNMPROC to send the current CNM record across specified ISR links.

&CNMDEL

Used in CNMPROC to delete the current CNM record or stop the current CNM record from being sent across specified ISR links.

&CNMPARSE

Produces tokenized data from the $CNM mapped MDO used by NEWS.

&CNMREAD

Makes the next CNM record received from VTAM available to CNMPROC, or the next outstanding RU available to a user procedure that has solicited data using an &CNMSEND statement.

&CNMSEND

Sends an RU across the CNM interface.

&CNMVECTR

Parses supplied hexadecimal data in the form of a CNM record into NCL tokens that correspond to the CNM vectors present.

&NEWSAUTH

Indicates whether the user ID of the user invoking a procedure is authorized for NEWS (system variable).

&NEWSRSET

Indicates whether the user ID of the user invoking a procedure is authorized to delete records from the NEWS database (system variable).

&SNAMS

Provides the SNA Management Services interface which enables NCL procedures to participate as management applications in an APPN network.

For more information about NEWS NCL verbs and system variables, see the Network Control Language Reference Guide.

Unattended Solicitation

NEWS supplies NCL procedures to solicit various types of network data, including RTM, VPD, EC level data, FCS, and LPDA2 data.

More information:

Line Command Procedures

NEWS Commands

The following is a summary of NEWS commands:

CNM

Starts and stops the VTAM CNM interface.

CNMTRACE

Defines a trace of records that come across the CNM interface. By default, all trace data is recorded.

DEFALIAS

Defines an alias entry for the Alias Name Translation Facility of NEWS.

DELALIAS

Deletes an alias entry used by the Alias Name Translation Facility of NEWS.

REPALIAS

Replaces an alias name entry used by the Alias Name Translation Facility of NEWS.

REQMS

Sends data across the CNM interface.

SHOW CNMTRACE

Displays active CNM trace requests.

SHOW DEFALIAS

Displays one or more DEFALIAS entries used by the Alias Name Translation Facility of NEWS.

SHOW SNAMS

Displays a list of all applications registered with SNA Management Services.

SYSMON

Logs the user on to the System Monitor residing in a 3600 or 4700 controller and sends data to the Monitor.

SYSPARMS

Initializes or modifies system parameter values.

XLATE

Performs name translation testing through the Alias Name Translation Facility of NEWS.

Testing NEWS Events

You can use NEWS alerts, also called NEWS events, to test processing in the structure of NEWS.

You can create the following types of NEWS events:

Alerts can be used to test the CNM record processing. This allows the testing of record support, which may not otherwise be possible until a CNM record arrives through the CNM interface. If the processing path for the record is incomplete or incorrect, or if a processing procedure fails, then a valuable record may be lost.

Test with Pre-existing Events

If there are NEWS events already created, you can test them instead of creating new alerts.

To test with pre-existing events

  1. Enter /SNAHIST to display the NEWS : Database Review menu, and enter 2.

    The NEWS : Events Review menu appears.

  2. Tab to a node and enter S.

    Another NEWS : Events Review panel appears.

  3. Tab to one of the records and enter S.

    The NEWS : Generic Alert Display panel appears.

  4. Enter C at the command prompt.

    The control codes that relate to that event appear. The codes determine what category on the control file defines the descriptive text.

  5. Enter D at the command prompt.

    A dump of the event appears.

  6. Enter RESEND at the command prompt.

    The alert is generated again, and, if you have made changes to the control file, the event will be reprocessed and will display updated values.

Create an Alert Menu

The NEWS : Create an Alert menu lets you create the following NMVT alerts:

Create an Operator Alert

You can produce operator alerts in the form of text messages to send to network operators.

To create an operator alert

  1. Enter /SNADIAG.CA at the prompt.

    The NEWS : Create an Alert Menu appears.

  2. Enter 1 at the prompt.

    The NEWS : Create an Operator Alert panel appears.

  3. Complete the following fields:
    Text Message

    Type a maximum of 10 lines of text, each of 60 characters.

    The text is entirely free-form and can contain any information required by the operator.

    Node Name

    If you want to change the default, then type the name of a resource in the Node Name field.

    By default, the user ID of the operator creating the alert is used as the name of the resource sending the alert. The receiving NEWS region logs the record in the NEWS database under the name of the resource which sent the alert.

  4. Perform the following steps if remote routing is required:
    1. In the Link Name field, type a link name to send the alert to the associated remote region.
    2. In the SSCP Name field, type an SSCP name to send the alert to the associated remote region.
  5. Press Enter.

    If successful, a message appears; otherwise, the alert is sent to the Alert Monitor as a NTFY Operator notification. Use the D option to display.

Create a Non-Generic (Basic) Alert

You can create a basic NMVT alert to report user-defined events, or to test the existing CNM processing path for any type of alert. The alert is queued to the targeted CNMPROC (on a local or remote region) for processing.

Much of the alert information is built to form subvectors. Each subvector carries information that helps describe the alert condition.

Note: For a description of these subvectors, see the IBM publication, SNA Formats and Protocols Reference.

To create a non-generic (basic) alert

  1. Enter /SNADIAG.CA at the prompt.

    The NEWS : Create an Alert Menu appears.

  2. Enter 2 at the prompt.

    The first NEWS : Create a Basic (Non-generic) Alert panel appears. The panel provides fields for the following alert information:

  3. Obtain the relevant reference codes associated with the subvector from IBM's SNA Formats and Protocols Manual and enter this information as follows:
    1. Enter information in the Basic Alert section. This information is built to form the following required subvector:
      • X'91'—Describes the condition that led to the generation of the alert, the possible causes of the alert condition, the recommended action, and may also supply a Detail Text Reference code to further describe the alert condition.
    2. Enter information in the Detailed Qualifiers section. When you enter detail qualifiers, you specify how data for the detail text of an alert message is transmitted for display. The detail text describes in detail what condition caused the generation of the alert and is defined by the reference code you entered in the Detail Text field in the Basic Alert subvector.

      You can either transmit the detail data in text characters using the text contents of the subvector X‘91’ to type the text characters for the detail data in each Qualifiers field, or you can transmit the hexadecimal representation of the data by typing the hexadecimal equivalent of the contents of the subvector X‘91’. The hexadecimal representation is converted to EBCDIC text before being displayed.

      The information in this section is built to form the following optional subvectors:

      • X'A0'—Supplies a qualifier that is added to the Detail Text when it appears and only applies if a Detail Text Reference code was supplied in the X'91' subvector. The qualifier contained in this subvector is in character form and is not interpreted before being displayed.
      • X'A1'—Supplies a qualifier that is added to the Detail Text when it appears and only applies if a Detail Text Reference code was supplied in the X'91' subvector. The qualifier contained in this subvector is in hexadecimal form and is translated into character format before being displayed.
  4. Press F8.

    The next panel appears. The panel provides fields for the following alert information:

  5. Continue to enter the reference code information you obtained from IBM's SNA Formats and Protocols Manual in the Alert Sender PSID and Indicated Resource PSID sections. This information is built to form the following optional subvector:
  6. Enter information in the Resource Hierarchy section by typing resource names and types in descending order, so that the resource immediately connected to the reported resource is the last in the hierarchy list.
  7. Enter information in the Remote Routing section to direct the alert to a remote region for processing by using the NEWS ISR facilities.

    Note: If no remote routing is requested, then the alert is directed to the local CNMPROC.

Create a Generic Alert

You can create Generic NMVT alerts to report events in the network or to test the existing CNM processing path for such an alert. The alert is queued to the targeted CNMPROC (on a local or remote region) for processing.

Much of the alert information is built to form subvectors. Each subvector carries information that helps describe the alert condition.

To create a generic alert

  1. Enter /SNADIAG.CA at the prompt.

    The NEWS : Create an Alert Menu appears.

  2. Enter 3 at the prompt.

    The first NEWS : Create a Generic Alert panel appears. The panel provides fields for the following alert information:

  3. Obtain the relevant reference codes associated with the subvector from IBM's SNA Formats and Protocols Manual and enter this information as follows:
    1. Enter information in the Generic Alert Data section. This information is built to form the following required subvector:
      • X'92'—Describes the severity of the condition which led to the generation of the alert, and gives a code which describes the alert condition.
    2. Enter information in the Probable Causes section. This information is built to form the following required subvector:
      • X'93'—Provides codes which describe the probable causes of the alert condition. A maximum of three Probable Cause codes can be entered.
    3. Enter information in the User Causes section. This information is built to form the following optional subvector:
      • X'94'—Provides codes that describe possible user-related causes of the alert condition, and supplies Recommended Action codes. A maximum of three User Cause codes and three Recommended Action codes can be entered.
    4. Enter information in the Install Causes section. This information is built to form the following optional subvector:
      • X'95'—Provides codes describing errors which may have been made during the installation of the resource which may have caused the alert condition, and supplies Recommended Action codes. A maximum of three Install Cause codes and three Recommended Action codes can be entered.
    5. Enter information in the Failure Causes section. This information is built to form the following optional subvector:
      • X'96'—Provides codes which describe possible device or software failures which may have caused the alert condition, and supplies Recommended Action codes. A maximum of three Failure Cause codes and three Recommended Action codes can be entered.
  4. Press F8 (Forward).

    The next panel appears. The panel provides fields for the following alert information:

  5. Continue to enter the reference code information you obtained from IBM's SNA Formats and Protocols Manual as follows:
    1. Enter information in the Undetermined Cause section. This information is built to form the following optional subvector:
      • X'97'—Specifies Recommended Action codes to describe the necessary action. If the cause for the alert condition is not known or cannot be expressed in the previous cause code subvectors, this subvector must be included in the alert. It carries no Cause codes. A maximum of three Recommended Action codes can be entered.
    2. Enter information in the Self-defining Text Message section. This information is built to form the following optional subvector:
      • X'31'—Carries text which can help with further diagnosis of the condition leading to the generation of the alert.
    3. Enter information in the Alert Sender PSID and Indicated Resource PSID sections. This information is built to form the following optional subvector:
      • X'10' (Product Set ID)—Describes a network resource. The alert can contain up to two of these subvectors. The first, if present, describes the resource sending the alert. This resource, called the Alert Sender, may be reporting an alert condition in another resource. If this is the case, a second Product Set ID subvector may be present, which describes the indicated resource. These resources are identified by their Common Hardware or Common Software name. For example, an IBM 3174 Control Unit would have a Common Hardware name of 3174.
  6. Enter information in the Resource Hierarchy section by typing resource names and types in descending order, so that the resource immediately connected to the reported resource is the last in the hierarchy list.
  7. Enter information in the Remote Routing section to direct the alert to a remote region for processing by using the NEWS ISR facilities.

    Note: If no remote routing is requested, then the alert is directed to the local CNMPROC.