		     Internet Rover 3.0 Introduction

PRELIMINARY - BETA TEST VERSION - DO NOT DISTRIBUTE

   The Merit Internet Rover package contains many NOC tools that have
been used by the Merit NOC to manage the National Science Foundation
Network (NSFNET), the Michigan State wide regional (MIchNet), the
University of Michigan Campus Network (UMNet)..  These tools have evolved
over the past four years, and are in use in many Network Operations
Centers (NOCs) across the country and around the world.  This paper
will describe the collection of tools individually, and then
collectively, describing how, as a system, these tools have worked
together to manage the networks.

  This release represents the next generation of Internet Rovers
including graphical as well as text monitors, statistics collection
tools, a fast SNMP API library, and some preliminary cuts of some network
discovery code.  As always, all source code is provided with hopes that
we can all leverage the improvements made by others. 

  This document will attempt to show the pieces of the rover system,
the file formats, and the necessary information in order to help you
get started applying these tools to your environment.   

  It is important to note that not all pieces of this code will be
applicable to your environment.  Several sub-systems in this code (e.g.
CircuitCheck) were designed specifically for the NSFNET architecture, and
will probably not be useable in their current form.  For the sake of
simplicity, and because the code may be modified to apply to your
environment, the code is being released as is.   If you don't have the
Motif libraries, simply don't build the graphical tools and the rest of
the code will work fine.  If you can't monitor the CSU/DSUs in your
network, simply don't build the CircuitCheck applications.

  You will notice that all interprocess communication is done via flat
files.  This was done on purpose.  You will notice that the rover code is
composed of many independent pieces that can be put together in a variety
of ways.  This was also done on purpose.  Over the last five years, we
have grown to appreciate flexibility.  In our environment, we have needed
to split the pieces across physical machine, hardware platform,
communication media, and finally,  administrative boundaries.  If
things can get confusing, they will.  Being able to debug problems by
catting flat files is a plus, and much easier than debugging various
other IPC mechanisms.  This has been my experience anyway, and I've
been the one who has had to muck with both situations in times of
calamity!   It also makes it easier for the novice to poke around and
figure out how things work.

  I hope you can use the code.  We have been fairly happy with it, and it
has served us in the 24-hour 7-day a week environment here at the Merit
NOC for the past 4 years since I started at Merit.

  Bill

