What's new in InterMapper 4.2?
InterMapper 4.2.6 was released on 20 April 2005. Its new features are listed below. Download Page.
- Customized Helper Applications
InterMapper now allows you to customize the list of helper applications used on your system. When you right-click or control-click on a device, you can now invoke an application of your choice. This helper application might give detailed information about a particular piece of equipment, or could be a tool for configuring the device or debugging a problem. Helper applications are now available for InterMapper Remote users, as well.
- Powerful Acknowledgements InterMapper has several new features for controlling or blocking extraneous notifications when one or more devices fail.
- Timed Acknowledgements InterMapper allows you to acknowledge a device for a specified period of time. This will avoid repeated notifications from a device that is known to be flapping or going up and down during repair.
- Pre-acknowledgement of Known or Planned Outages You can now suppress notifications for a device that you know will be going down for maintenance some time in the future. Simply set a timed acknowledgement on the device (even if it's currently running) and notifications will be blocked during that time period.
- Enhanced Dependencies You can optionally tell InterMapper to block notifications automatically for any devices that depend on the device being acknowledged. This can avert a flood of notifications that might otherwise occur when a core device fails.
- Wrench Icon as a Reminder InterMapper places a small wrench icon next to any device that has a timed acknowledgement. A quick visual scan of the map reminds the operator of which devices have explicitly blocked notifications.
- New Probes
- Cisco Wireless Access Points InterMapper now can test Cisco IOS-based wireless access points as well as the older models. This probe will show the number of associated clients as well as their MAC addresses.
- TCP Port Blocked Probe InterMapper will attempt to connect to the specified port on a device. If the connection is refused, the device will be displayed as green. If it is not refused, the device will show as Down.
- More Flexible Probes InterMapper supports calculations in its custom probes, so you can create more stringent tests for your devices. For example, you can create a custom probe that retrieves many data values, performs calculations on those data, and sends notifications based on the results. This new facility allows you to create arbitrary arithmetic and string expressions using a C-like syntax.
- InterMapper 4.2 will be the last version that is built and tested for MacOS 9 and earlier. The MacOS X
version will be enhanced in parallel with the Windows, Unix, and Linux versions. InterMapper 4.2 will be
fully supported on the Mac Classic operating system. However, if you're using MacOS 9 or earlier, you should
consider moving to MacOS X so that you can use follow-on versions.
- Miscellaneous Features InterMapper adds numerous small fixes to improve its capabilities:
- Improved Strip Charting: You can now add any data value to a strip chart with any fixed numeric precision. This applies both to data received from a device as well as any calculated value.
- Multicast DNS: InterMapper now supports Multicast DNS in its built-in DNS resolver, allowing you to find and monitor your Apple Airports, printers, and other Rendezvous devices that have link-local, dynamic IP addresses.
- Clickable links in status windows: You can now create a status window with clickable links in the text. This is useful for providing a link to supplementary information within the status window.
- There is an optional flag in custom SNMP probes that disables the default ICMP fallback behavior.
- You can now customize the SMTP port used in outgoing e-mail notifications. You can use this to connect to non-standard ports for special applications.
- InterMapper Remote can now import icons onto a running InterMapper server.
New features in Version 4.2.1 - 12 July 2004
- [FEATURE] Strip charts now feature many new MRTG-like capabilities.
- Charts now have Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly time scales. This gives a much better view of a longer-term history.
- Prefix Scaling. You can adjust the prefix for the charted values, so that values that range between zero and one million units can be shown as 0-1000 kilo-units, or 0-1 mega-units, with correspondingly smaller numerical values.
- Logarithmic/Linear axis. You can select whether the Y-axis should be drawn on a linear or logarithmic scale. This has the effect of magnifying the details of small values, while minimizing the peak values.
- [FEATURE] The Error and Full pages on the web interface now show response times.
- [FEATURE] When launched, InterMapper Remote and Console now restore all the maps that were open when it quit. This makes it much easier to keep a "standard" set of maps open.
- [BUG FIXES] A number of minor changes and bug fixes.
New features in Version 4.2.2 - 9 August 2004
- [BUG FIXES] Many bug fixes related to optimizations, libpng, 'https' URLs in comments, log entries when pager and e-mail notifications are sent, and others.
New features in Version 4.2.3 - 15 October 2004
- [FEATURE] New probe for Apple Computer G4 and G5 Xserve.
- [BUG FIXES] Many bug fixes related to wireless probes, web server, paging, reloading probes, and others.
New features in Version 4.2.4 - 7 February 2005
- [FEATURE] New serial number capability to support WISPerMapper license files
- [FEATURE] Paging now works with more modems on Unix systems.
- [FEATURE] Wireless Probe Add-on is now incorporated into the WISPerMapper download.
- [BUG FIXES] Many bug fixes related to command line probes, serial numbers, improved icon display, and others.
New features in Version 4.2.5 - 15 March 2005
- [BUG FIXES] Many bugs fixed, including BER decoding for malformed SNMP packets, improved handling of TCP connections, increased number of simultaneous IM Remote clients, improved handling of PNGs on web pages, Apple Airport probe, and others.