Netmap is new in NAV 3.5 and replaces the old TrafficMap (vlanplot).

Netmap is based on the prefuse library, and uses its ForceBasedLayout-engine for finding the optimal graphical layout for the network. The netmap itself is an Java Applet, and should run on both Java 5 and Java 6. Java 5 is required to build the Netmap-applet.

Netmap has these features:

• Dynamic generation of network-topology based upon prefixes for gwports, and the to_swportid field for swports (discovered by networkDiscovery).
• Fetching of rrd-load data for links between netboxes
• View load based upon relative usage or on fixed rates (0-100, 100-512,512-2048,2048-4096,>4096 Mbit/s) - the rates are hardcoded, but can be made configurable on high demand.
• Filtering of netboxes based on categories. These categories are set from the categories you have in the database.
• Searching. One can search after netboxes based on sysname, room or ip.
• Freezing of layout to preserve cpu-load. The layout-engine does require some cpu-power, so enabling this when your satisfied with the layout is a good idea.

NOTE: Icons for the following categories are included GSW, GW, OTHER, SRV, SW, WLAN. If you have other categories, put an icon with the category name in /usr/local/nav/apache/webroot/netmap/applet/media (or similar if custom paths are used) in the png format. EDGE type is to be included in NAV 3.4.1

• After you start netmap the routers will flow around all over the place. When the automatic graph layout stabilizes, press the right mouse button to zoom in to see a complete overview.
• The default view display shown routers on layer 3 (filters|categories: GW and GSW, filters|linktype:layer3). To expand the view use the filters menu and hook off more selections in the categories and linktype menu).
• The automatic graph layout constantly tries to improve the layout. To freeze the picture use Actions|Freeze layout
• To display more info regarding a node click on it to get a pop-up. The pop-up also provides a link to IP Device Info.
• To get details on the actual traffic on a link, click on the link. A link to the interface view of IP Device Info is provided. From there you can see the actual graphs for the traffic statistics
• To zoom hold the right mouse button and move the mouse down or up.
• To move the graph hold the left mouse and move the mouse around
• You may search for a device and then zoom in on it
• To see the traffic picture relative to link load select Visualisation|Show load based on relative usage

The netmap is available from the toolbox. Clicking it will launch the Java applet.

The applet will take some time to load, depending on the scale of your network. If it takes more than 10 seconds, please ensure that your rrd_file-table has an index on the value-field, if not create it ( CREATE INDEX rrd_file_value ON rrd_file(value); ).

The first thing you see will be a blank page with a menubar. If you select the “Filters” menu you've got two choices, Categories and Linktypes. These category-checkboxes define what kind of netboxes that are visible on screen. Typically you'd want to select GW, GSW and SW, but thats up to you. Then select what kind of linktypes you want to see. What you'll see now is a bunch of nodes appearing at the center of the screen and moving outwards. Netmap now applies physical properties to the netboxes and applies negative gravity on each of them. You can zoom in and out of the map by holding your right mousebutton and moving your mouse up and down. You can tell netmap to try zooming for best fit by double-clicking your right mouse-button. Panning the map is done by holding the left mouse-button and moving the mouse.

Every element in the page can be clicked for more information about it, both the netboxes themselves and the edges (links) that connect them.

The load colors on the edges defaults to fixed-rate colors. To change this go to the “Visualization”-menu and select “Show load based on relative usage”.

When you are satisfied with how the network has spread it self, you can freeze the layout in the “Actions” menu.

Searching is done in the text field on the menu bar. Netmap starts searching as soon as you type, and tries to zoom in on the objects that match. So, if you would like to zoom into a part of your network, say every netbox in 10.0.10.*, you'd type 10.0.10. in the search field, and netmap should zoom into that section. The same applies for sysnames and rooms.

1. Rendering is horrible slow This kind of problem can be two things (or both). Either cpu-bound problems, or gpu-bound problems. The CPU-part is hard to combat except with filtering out more devices. The GPU-bound problems can cause massive cpu-load also though (fallback to software-rendering). For these kind of problems try various combinations of http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/2d/flags.html in the java-plugin control-panel (under Runtime-settings).