Red/Black 1.1 New Features

Red/Black is a management product that monitors and controls devices and servers, with a particular focus on HF Radio systems.

Below is a list of the big changes that have been included in this update.

New Generic Drivers

Two generic device drivers have been added that can facilitate management of some devices which do not have a specific driver.

  • NULL Driver. This is for devices which do not have a management interface, such as Crypto boxes. It allows such devices to be included in the communications chain.
  • TCP Connect Driver. This driver simply makes a TCP connection to configured host/port. If the TCP connection is accepted, the device is considered to be working. Many servers and devices can be monitored in this way to give a simple Operational / Not Operational status. This can be useful to provide basic monitoring for a wide range of devices.

Device Created Devices

Red/Black has a simple device model of a device with status and control parameters. This is good for many devices, but is inadequate for more complex devices. The approach taken by Red/Black is to represent more complex devices by a device hierarchy (rather than making the device model more complex). Such devices can be configured as a single device in Red/Black and then the device will report back the virtual device hierarchy to Red/Black, The M-Switch device driver uses this.

M-Switch Device Driver

A device driver is provided for M-Switch. M-Switch uses a three level hierarchy corresponding to the M-Switch configuration. The first level below the M-Switch device is a list of channels, corresponding to all channels that can send and queue messages. Some channels (currently ACP 127 and CFTP) have an additional device level corresponding to circuits. This enables an operator to see the number of messages queued and oldest message for channels and circuits. Circuits and Channels using STANAG 5066 (ACP 127/COSS, ACP 142 and CFTP) will be automatically connected to the correct Icon-5066 server in Red/Black. This is achieved by configuring in the Red/Black device name of the STANAG 5066 server in the M-Switch configuration. ACP 127 direct to modem circuits are connected to the correct Red/Black serial devices, which will typically be a serial switch. This is achieved by M-Switch configuration of the Red/Black device name in the ACP 127 circuit.

Real Device Monitoring down to Modem Level

Red/Black 1.0 monitoring primarily used the Mock Driver to enable configuration of realistic monitoring scenarios. In Red/Black 1.1, all Isode supplied servers and modems supported by Isode have real drivers. This enables configuration of full red side monitoring and black side monitoring down to the modem level. Black side devices such as antennae, can still be emulated by mock devices and drivers for setups where real drivers are not provided.

Boundary Display

Red side monitoring shows the red/black boundary and enables devices such as Crypto and M-Guard to reside on the boundary.