
                        ---------------------------
                        LANtronix
                        ----------------------------
                        EZWebCon Management Software
                        ----------------------------
                        Tutorial
                        ----------------------------

                        Version V1.1/8
			December 20, 1999

                        Copyright (c) 1997 - 1999, Lantronix



Introduction
============

The EZWebCon server management tool provides an easy-to-use interface
for initial setup, maintenance, and monitoring/analysis of your
Lantronix product. This document describes how to use EZWebCon.


Overview 
========

EZWebCon can be separated into two different parts: the shell and the
scripts.

Shell
-----

The EZWebCon shell provides an interface in which you can select a
server on your network to manage. The shell is independent of the
other components of EZWebCon.

The only currently available EZWebCon shell is called Configlet (see
"Configlet Shell" below). More advanced shells are planned for future
releases of EZWebCon.

Scripts 
-------

Scripts define how to manage a specific type of server product (LRS,
EPS, etc.). Each script is independent of other scripts and of the
shell.


General Look-and-feel 
=====================

Windows 
-------

EZWebCon's windows have a common look-and-feel. They all have two
regions: content and navigation.

The content area is the top portion of the window, occupying roughly
two thirds of the window space. The material in the content area
changes depending upon the window.

The navigation area is the bottom part of the window. It always has
the Lantronix logo on the left hand side (see "Logo menu" below), and
often has a Help button to the immediate right of the logo. Up to
three additional buttons may appear in the navigational area, depending
upon the window.

Logo menu 
---------

The Lantronix logo in the bottom left-hand corner of every window is
actually a pop-up menu of five options:

"About EZWebCon" displays a splash screen.

"About this menu" displays a page in the Help window that describes the
logo menu (see "Help window" below).

"Generate technical support report" displays a window for sending
electronic mail to Lantronix technical support or for saving the same
information to a file. The window contains some standard information
by default: EZWebCon version, script version (if done from a script's
window), java version, java vendor, and location within EZWebCon (what
window you chose this menu item from).

"Display Lantronix web site" displays the Lantronix home page using
your default web browser.

"Perform EZUpdate" Automatically updates your EZWebCon with any patches
or bug fixes since the last release, or informs you if a new release 
is available.

"Assign IP Address to Server" allows the user to enter a server's
Ethernet (hardware) address and assign the server a numeric IP
address. This option is useful when placing a new server on the local
network because users can assign an IP address directly from EZWebCon 
instead of needing a terminal.

Help button 
-----------

When pressed, the Help button pops up the Help window with general
information about the current contents of the EZWebCon main
window. The Help button is present in many windows.

Help window 
-----------

If you are running the EZWebCon Browser Edition, the Help window is a
separate browser window that pops up to display HTML help files.

If you are running the EZWebCon Application Edition, EZWebCon displays
all of its help information in a separate Help window. The Help window
can display simple HTML pages one at a time. A back button allows users
to return to previous help screens. The Help window is shared by the shell
and all scripts.

A lot of the help for each script consists of direct references to the
on-line reference manual for the product family being managed.

Words that are highlighted within the EZWebCon window are help links.
Clicking on a highlighted word will display the Help window with available
information about that item.

Activity window 
---------------

The Activity window is automatically displayed in the event of a
serious EZWebCon problem; all such problems should be sent to
technical support using the window's "Send" button.

Please note that when running the EZWebCon Browser Edition, the
Activity window is not used currently. Instead, error information is
displayed in the Java Activator Console window. For information on how to
display the console window, please refer to the Technical Support section
of the README document.

The Activity window has four buttons: Clear, Send, Save, and
Close. Clear erases all the text in the window. Send displays a window
to send the current contents of the activity window along with other
relevant information (version numbers, etc.) to technical support.
Save displays a window to save the current contents of the activity
window along with other relevant information to a file so you can send it
to technical support. Close closes the Activity window, but does not
clear its contents or stop EZWebCon from adding messages to it.


Configlet Shell 
===============

The main Configlet window has the normal EZWebCon look-and-feel
including the logo menu and Help button. There are two additional
buttons: Options and Close. The Options button displays the Options
window (see "Options window" below). The Close button quits EZWebCon.

The Configlet shell displays icons in its main window for each type of
server it supports. When an icon for a server family is clicked, the
server selection dialog is displayed. Within this dialog, the user
enters the IP address or DNS-resolvable name of the server to manage.

In addition, a Browse... button displays a dialog containing a list of
servers of the desired type that are discovered on the local area
network. The user can choose one from the list and EZWebCon launches
the script used to manage that server type.

Options window 
--------------

The Options window is displayed using the Options button found in
Configlet's main window (see "Configlet Shell" above).

The window has one tab:  Mail Setup.

"Mail setup" allows the user to enter the DNS-resolvable name or IP
address of the local area network's SMTP server for sending outgoing
email. If this value is not set and the user tries to send mail to 
technical support, he will be prompted for a value for this field.


Scripts 
=======

Main Script Window 
------------------

The main script window has the standard EZWebCon look-and-feel
including the logo menu and Help button. The content area is referred
to as a "page" because it varies during the life of the script. The
help displayed when the Help button is clicked varies based on the
current page contents.

A script consists of six basic modes: page one, interview,
maintenance, statistics/monitoring, firmware reloading, and rebooting.

Page one (often called "script page one"), displayed when a script
starts, provides a menu of options. Five of the options in the menu
are the same as the remaining five basic script modes, while the other
two simply perform modal operations which do not require pages for
user input. All of the menu choices are discussed below.

Interview Wizard(s) 
-------------------

After the user chooses an interview from a main interview selection
page, the script window enters interview mode. While in interview
mode, the navigational area at the bottom of the script window always
has the logo menu, the Help button, a Previous button, and a Next
button.

An interview consists of an ordered set of pages, some of which
contain links to optional advanced pages. The user steps through the
interview by answering the questions on the current page and then
clicking the Next button. The contents of subsequent pages are
determined by the user's entries so far. The user can click the
Previous button to return to previous pages if desired.

The first page of an interview is always textual. It describes the
interview's purpose and what special information, if any, will be
needed to complete it.

The final page of an interview is always a menu of three options:
Summarize and edit, Save, and Download.

"Summarize and edit" displays a hierarchical table of entered data from
the entire interview. The user can choose to re-visit the entry page
for a piece of data by selecting its row in the table and clicking on
the Re-visit button. After the user re-visits a page, he must use the
Next button to step through the remaining portion of the interview
which will still contain all of his entries. The reason the user must
step through the interview again is that changing an entered value may
affect what pages are displayed or what items are available on future
pages.

"Save" saves the configuration generated in the interview to either a
configuration file or a command file (see "File Formats" below). A
window pops up in which the user can choose the desired file type and
specify a pathname.

"Download" sends the generated configuration directly to the server.
EZWebCon prompts the user to reboot the server so that the 
configuration takes effect immediately.

Maintenance 
-----------

Maintenance mode itself consists of two different modes: the initial
maintenance screen and maintenance pages (interviews).

The initial maintenance screen has the standard EZWebCon look-and-feel
including the logo menu and Help button. There is also a Menu button
and a Select button. The Menu button returns the user to script page
one while the Select button switches the user to the page or interview
associated with the currently selected item in a navigator.

The maintenance screen content area consists of two navigators (right
and left), a Help area (middle), and a Search area with a text field
(bottom middle).

The left navigator consists of a hierarchical list of parameter
sets. The items in the left navigator usually lead to single pages
that allow the user to change a number of related parameters. The
right navigator consists of a hierarchical list of tasks. These items
are usually short interviews for performing tasks that are more
complex than changing a single value or a few related values.

The central Help area displays a short description of the item
currently selected in one of the navigators.

The Search feature allows users to find the appropriate maintenance
page used to configure a specific parameter. Users enter a search term
into the text-entry field and press the Find button. If a match is
found, the related maintenance item is marked in the navigator.

The maintenance pages have the standard EZWebCon look-and-feel
including the logo menu and Help button. There are three additional
buttons: Abort, Restore, and OK. The Abort button returns the user to
the initial maintenance screen, ignoring any changes made on the
current maintenance page. The Restore button returns the settings on
the current page to what they were when the user first entered the
page. The OK button accepts any changes made to the parameters on the
page, sends them to the server, and then returns the user to the
initial maintenance screen.

Maintenance interviews work the same as normal interviews.

Statistics/Monitoring 
---------------------

The statistics pages have the standard EZWebCon look-and-feel
including the logo menu and Help button. There is also a Menu button
for returning to the statistics menu page.

Statistics mode starts with an initial menu page. Each menu option
leads to a separate statistics page consisting of a table or graph for
monitoring the server.

Extract Configuration 
---------------------

This option initiates an extract on the current server. The server's
complete configuration is learned and saved in either the
configuration file format or the command file format (see "File
Formats" below).

Download Configuration 
----------------------

This option prompts the user to enter the pathname of a configuration
or command file to download to the current server (see "File Formats"
below).

Reload Firmware 
---------------

This interview wizard allows the user to reload the firmware on the
current server. The software reload operation requires a TFTP server or
EZWebCon (which has a TFTP server built in). EZWebCon detects if a TFTP
server is running on the local machine or not. If one is running locally,
the wizard gives the user the option of using that to reload the current
server. If no local TFTP server is running on the local machine, the user
has the option of letting EZWebCon do the reload. In either case, the user
can elect to use a TFTP server running on some other computer on your local
network for doing the firmware reload.

The firmware file to reload can be chosen from the files accessible on the
local machine or from the firmware files available at Lantronix's FTP
site (ftp.lantronix.com). If the user chooses to use a firmware file on the
Lantronix FTP server, that firmware file can also be saved locally for
future reloads.

Reboot
------

This page lets the user initiate a firmware reload, initialize the server
to factory defaults, or simply reboot the server.

The firmware reload option just sends the command to initiate a firmware
reload to the current server and does not let the user set up the
software file to load or the loadhost to load from. In most cases, users
should use the Reload Firmware interview wizard discussed above for
reloading a server with new firmware.

File Formats 
============

Configuration file 
------------------

A configuration file is written in an EZWebCon-specific file
format. It saves more information than a command file and therefore
can be used in more ways in future versions of EZWebCon.

Command file 
------------

The command file format is simply a text file containing the command
line interface (CLI) commands that need to be sent to the server in
order to achieve the desired configuration. The format is the same one
used by EZCon and by the servers themselves (as startup files).

Users who are familiar with the product's CLI command set can edit the
command file using any text editor.
