What's New in InterMapper®  4.5?

InterMapper 4.5 includes many new features and minor enhancements. Read InterMapper Features for a complete description of InterMapper's capabilities, or the Release Notes for a detailed list of the changes in this version. Download Page.

New Features

  • Icon/List/Notifier view: As part of the GUI enhancements, maps display three views: an "icon" view (the previous version's appearance); as a list of devices, with columns for device name, address, status, uptime, probe type, etc.; or as a list showing devices with the attached alerts.

  • Toolbar: The map window's toolbar makes it easier to select items that are up, down, or another state.

  • Writing events to syslog server: InterMapper will be able to write any of its log file entries to a remote syslog server.

  • Responsibilities: The Notifier View of the map allows you to see and set who is responsible for each device (that is, who will be notified of problems).

  • Device Info window and Network Info window: These windows provide information about SNMP device configuration and status. In addition, they serve as a convenient shortcut for editing the map.

  • Default Shapes (rectangles, ovals, clouds, etc.): These now have a 3-D, rounded appearance.

  • A new set of Default icons is included in the software.

  • Status Badges Special accessibility note for users who are colorblind: In addition to coloring the icons, InterMapper places status badges that show status (down, alarm, warning, critical). These badges help visually distinguish good states (green) from bad states (yellow, orange, or red).

  • Autosave: InterMapper will continually save changes to a map (every minute or so) to prevent loss of the changes. You can save named backup copies, and restore or revert to one of those versions.

  • New Polling behaviors: InterMapper has new options for the behavior of the device being polled.

    Ignore Outages: InterMapper will poll a device and alert to problems when it's operating, but ignore it (without alerts) when it becomes unresponsive. This allows network administrators to monitor desktops that get shut off overnight, or laptops that get taken home.

    Allow Periodic Reprobe: You can choose whether or not a device is to be automatically reprobed every 12 hours.

  • Alerts on Interface Outages: InterMapper now treats outages on each interface of a device as a separate alert event. Each time an interface goes down, the device will go into alarm. The device icon turns orange, and the affected interface gets a red "X". Any notifications for that device are triggered.

  • Alerts for Packet Loss or Round-Trip Time: InterMapper gives notifications for packet-loss and round-trip times that exceed a configurable threshold.

  • Device-specific thresholds: Depending on a probe of a device, they include: down thresholds (packet-based probes), interface errors (snmp-based probes), short-term packet loss (packet-based probes), round-trip time (all probes). The thresholds can be set in Map Settings, and also per-device.

  • Short-term packet loss: SNMP and Ping probes now use the result of the last 100 pings/snmp queries to compute the short-term packet loss. This value is used when testing against thresholds (critical/alarm/warning). It is not counted when a device is down. Telnet and web interfaces display only the total packet loss, and do not include the short-term one. Short-term packet loss can be exported from the devices table.

  • Updated probes: InterMapper has new and updated probes for the following functions:

    LDAP and LDAP-SSL probes now support optional password when binding, allow you to specify an alternate search field, and can send an alert if an insufficient number of records are returned.

    New DNS probes: InterMapper has new DNS probes to send queries for MX, NS, PTR and TXT records.

    The Host Resources probe now allows you to select which disks to monitor.

  • Wireless Bundle: Updated probes for smartBridges, Tranzeo, Mikrotik, and other equipment.

  • New Import and Export Facilities: InterMapper can now import data in XML format and import and export data in CSV format. In addition, we have added the ability to export a list of maps and their associated status, and a list of the interfaces of devices.

  • Import and Parse SNMP MIBs: InterMapper now has a MIB compiler. You can import SNMP MIB files and use the information to enhance the formatting of the displayed data. For example, certain views (especially in log files and the SNMP Table views) will use the MIB data to display numeric values as the human-readable strings.

  • Display of SNMP Table data: InterMapper will be able to read, format and display the table data from a device's SNMP tables in a separate window. The customer will be able to peruse the data displayed in this window for problems.

  • Product Name Changes: We have changed the following product names in the installers, on the web site, etc.

    InterMapper Console becomes "InterMapper"

    InterMapper Remote becomes "InterMapper RemoteAccess"

    InterMapper for WISPs becomes an InterMapper license combined with a "Wireless Bundle"

    The System Tray/OSX Menu application becomes the "InterMapper Control Center"

Minor Enhancements/Bug Fixes

  • A new Critical status for devices is represented as a non-blinking red icon on the map. This status generally indicates a more serious condition than the current (orange) Alarm status. It is also possible to send alerts when the device goes into critical status.

  • A map slideshow will rotate all the maps to the front on a settable time interval.

  • Rearranged menus regularize the commands so they're more logical and easier to find.

  • Show Unconnected Networks command unhides all network ovals that have no connections. This is useful for cleaning up maps.

  • Maps can be disabled directly from the Map List.

  • Detailed Logging can now be limited to information for a certain IP address.

  • As part of the new Bug Reporter facility, the Help menu now contains a command for automatically sending a bug report, a screen shot, or both.

  • The Map Settings window (in the Edit menu) collects all the map's settings in one place.

  • Set Latitude/Longitude is a new GUI command.

  • Enhanced modem paging allows you to specify the number of attempts, and the time between repeats, as well as the ability to abort all pages that are queued.

  • Non-Roman text (specifically, accented characters) will be handled properly, both in the RemoteAccess client and on the server.

  • InterMapper will optionally use a WINS server along with a WINS scope for naming.

  • Underlined values can always be dragged and dropped to add values to a strip chart, without unlocking the map first.

  • A "Minimal" flag for custom SNMP probes instructs InterMapper to send queries for only the OIDs listed in the probe. (The default is to request several variables from MIB-II as well.)

  • InterMapper will parse all fields of SNMP traps that earlier versions had not processed, and make them available for comparisons. This allows customers to make more sophisticated probes and alerts.

Minor Releases

  • InterMapper 4.5.1 brings the ability to set device thresholds (for errors, round trip time, and short-term packet loss) for all maps at once through a new Server Setting pane, and typeahead for locating devices in a list view. In addition, it fixes several bugs, including crashes when saving maps automatically on Windows, and incorrect reports of high packet loss.
  • InterMapper 4.5.2 brings a number of new features. Here is a list of the most important.
    • The short-term packet loss statistic no longer includes the packets that caused the device to go down. If short-term packet loss was zero before the outage, then it will remain at zero. (InterMapper never includes dropped packets while a device is down.)
    • You can now reset one or many devices' short-term packet loss from the Monitor menu. A burst of errors/dropped packets will show up, but can be cleared out easily.
    • The DHCP probe now issues a warning when multiple inconsistent responses are received. This is useful for detecting when multiple DHCP servers are present on a network.
    • A new group — FullLogAccess — allows its members to read all log files, even if the members are not otherwise an administrator.
    • On Windows, the GUI launcher program now automatically logs stdout and stderr to a file named intermapper.out
    • A number of bug fixes, detailed in the Release Notes.
  • InterMapper 4.5.3 fixes a bug in SNMP processing. All customers using a 4.5 version should upgrade.
  • InterMapper 4.5.4 has a few new features and several bug fixes, including:
    • The web pages now display two images for maps: one image showing the devices/links/networks overlaid on a separate image for the map's background. The first image has a transparent background, so that the background "shows through." This saves bandwidth, as only the foreground image needs to be retrieved when refreshing the page.
    • When starting up on Mac OS X, the InterMapper server writes its status to a file in /tmp so that the InterMapper Control Center can give more accurate feedback about its state.
    • Several enhancements to the custom probe language facilities.
  • InterMapper 4.5.5 has a few new features and several bug fixes, including:
    • Probes for several services in Apple's Mac OSX Server.
    • Probes for Inscape Data Corporation's AirEther AB54 and CB54 series devices.
    • Several bug fixes.
  • InterMapper 4.5.6 has a new feature and several bug fixes, including:
    • Probes for Inscape Data Corporation's AirEther AB54 and CB54 series devices have been added to the Wireless Probe Pack for users with a wireless license.
    • Several bug fixes.
  • InterMapper 4.5.7 has a few new features and several bug fixes, including:
    • Updates for the Xserve RAID and OSX Server probes.
    • Bug fixes for MacOS X 10.5 Preview, Java 6, and others.
  • InterMapper 4.5.8 has a few new features and several bug fixes, including:
    • Xserve RAID now monitors both controllers and lists the status of all drives, all RAID Sets, and both power supplies.
    • Updated the SSL Certificate for encrypted connections to remove the "Security certificate expired" warning.
    • Bug fixes for Java 6, and Xserve on Tiger probe, and others.