Xena Knowledge Base

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This short guide will help you get started using XenaManager. Our first step will be to show you how to set up a simple bi-directional layer-2 Ethernet switching test scenario.

Configuring your first testbed

A testbed is a collection of ports that you currently work with. Several XenaManager panels will only show information for ports that are in your current testbed. This includes the port and stream configuration grid panels, and the Global Statistics panel.

1. Press the Add Chassis button located to the left in the ribbon bar at the top of the application.
2. Fill in the IP address or hostname of the chassis, optionally change the Chassis Port Number, enter the password (default is xena) and click OK button. The Available Resources tree view at the left will now populate with the modules and ports contained in the chassis.
3. A new configuration has been created automatically when you start the application for the first time. This configuration contains a single default testbed called “Default Testbed”. You can see this testbed at the top of the resource tree view. You can create any number of testbeds but for now we will use the default testbed to start with.
4. You can now add ports to your testbed. This is done by clicking the checkbox in the Used column to the right of the port name in the resource tree. Add two ports to your testbed in this way. Please ensure that the two ports are connected through a standard layer-2 switch.
5. If you only want to see the ports included in your testbed you can click the Show Only Used Ports checkbox in the testbed selection part of the resource tree.
6. To quickly reserve all ports in your testbed click the Reserve Used Ports button next to the Show Only Used Ports checkbox. Note that ports are not automatically reserved just because you have included them in your testbed.
7. If you have a number of chassis in the testbed you can change the order in which they are displayed with the Chassis Sort Order. You can sort by Index (the order the chassis were added), chassis Description, chassis Name or chassis IP address.

Configuring Streams

In this section we will setup a single stream on each testport in your testbed. We will set each stream to target the other port.

• To quickly create a stream on your testport you can right-click on the port and select the Add Stream menu item. Create a stream on both your testports in this way.
• Select the new stream on the first port and ensure that you have selected the Resource Properties panel. The panel will now display the properties for the stream.
• Scroll down to the Packet Header Definitions section in the stream properties view. Here you will find a Wireshark-like protocol header editor which allows you to define the protocol headers for the stream.
• Expand the Ethernet segment to view the fields in the segment. Note that the Src MAC Address field has been automatically set to the MAC address of the containing port. Expand the dropdown-box in the Named Values column for the Dst MAC Address and locate the other port in your testbed. Note that the Raw Value column is also automatically updated with the MAC address of the peer port.
• Perform the same operation for the second stream on the other port.

Viewing Statistics

In this section we will show how to control traffic on your testbed as a whole and also how to monitor traffic on all ports and streams in the testbed.

• Change to the Global Statistics panel. You should now see your two testports in the testbed in a grid view.
• Press the Clear Counters button in the toolbar at the top of the panel to ensure that you start with a clean view.
• Press the Start Traffic button to start traffic on all testports in your testbed. You should now see the TX and RX traffic counters start to increment for both ports.
• Press the Stop Traffic button to stop the traffic on both ports.

Note: The Global Statistics view will only show ports and streams that are used by your testbed. If you require to briefly inspect the statistics counters for another port you can use the single-resource Port Statistics panel which will show statistics for the currently selected port, regardless of whether it is in your testbed or not.