Help for Foxhound 2.0.4215a

Table of Contents    [RisingRoad]


1. The Foxhound Menu Page

The main "Foxhound for SQL Anywhere" page is called the Foxhound Menu because it lets you choose which target database you want to work with.

1.1 The Foxhound Menu Menu

1.2 The DSN Tab

1.3 The String Tab

1.4 The Monitor Tab


1.1 The Foxhound Menu Menu    [Top]
Every page has a menu line, even the Foxhound Menu :)

The New Menu link opens the Foxhound Menu page in a new browser window or tab. This link appears on every Foxhound page to make it easy to look at multiple databases at the same time.

The Foxhound Options link opens the Foxhound Options page in a new browser window or tab.

The Monitor Options link opens the Monitor Options page in a new browser window or tab. That page lets you enable and disable different alerts, change the conditions under which alerts are issued and manage multiple Monitor sessions using a tab-delimited file of connection strings.

The button is a context-sensitive link to this Help topic. This button appears in many locations, each of them a link to a different Help topic in this frame.

Tip: To hide the Help for every new page, see the Show Help section on the Foxhound Options page.

The About link opens the About Foxhound page in a new browser window or tab.


1.2 The DSN Tab    [Top]

The DSN tab lets you pick a target database by using an ODBC Data Source.

If you don't have a DSN, and you don't want to create one, try using the String tab instead.

The Choose a DSN: drop-down list lets you pick which DSN you want from all the User and System DSNs recorded in the Windows registry.

Foxhound turns off AutoStart and AutoStop processing as follows:

When Foxhound connects to the target database it uses a connection string that looks like this, where xxx is the DSN you have specified:

   DSN=xxx; AutoStop=NO; AutoStart=NO; ConnectionName=Foxhound-pnnn
or this if you have provided a user id yyy and password zzz:
   UID=yyy; PWD=zzz; DSN=xxx; AutoStop=NO; AutoStart=NO; ConnectionName=Foxhound-pnnn
The AutoStop=NO; AutoStart=NO; ConnectionName=Foxhound-pnnn values override any values specified inside the DSN. The nnn value will be a number 001, 002, etc.

If you want AutoStop and/or AutoStart processing, use the String tab to connect instead of the DSN tab.

The User Id: and Password: fields are optional; you don't need to fill them in if values are stored in the DSN itself.

Check Include system tables if you want the Display Schema page to include the SQL Anywhere catalog tables and views; e.g., ISYSTAB and SYSTABLE.

The button connects to the target database and opens the Display Schema page in the current browser window or tab.

The button opens the Monitor Database page in the current browser window or tab. If a sampling session already exists for this DSN, sample data from that session will be displayed. If not, Foxhound will start a new sampling session and display that data.

The button tells Foxhound to include non-SQL Anywhere DSNs in the Choose a DSN: drop-down, and excludes them again.

The button starts the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator program so you can edit and create DSNs. This button is disabled if the Foxhound engine is not running locally; Foxhound can only use the ODBC DSNs that are stored on the same machine that's running the Foxhound engine, so that's where you have to go to run the ODBC Administrator.


1.3 The String Tab    [Top]

The String tab lets you pick a target database by specifying the SQL Anywhere connection string. Foxhound always uses ODBC to connect to the target database, but that doesn't mean you need to create a DSN, and this tab makes a DSN-less connection possible.

... but, if you always use DSNs to connect to your database, you probably don't need to use the String tab at all.

The Choose a connection string: drop-down list lets you pick which connection string you want to use. Connections strings are stored in the Foxhound database, and several samples are delivered in the initial setup.

The Enter or edit the connection string... box lets you create, edit and delete your connection strings.

The Name: field lets you specify a name to uniquely identify this connection string in the Foxhound database. Connection string names are separate from DSN names so you can use the same names if you want.

The String: field lets you fill in the connection parameters.

Foxhound changes the default settings for AutoStop and AutoStart from YES to NO, and provides a default connection string name, by appending the following connection parameters to the end of the string you provide (where nnn is a number 001, 002, etc):
   AutoStop=NO; AutoStart=NO; ConnectionName=Foxhound-pnnn
If you provide different values for these parameters in the string you provide, your values will be used because that's the way connection strings are processed: the first value for any parameter is the one that is used.

However, that rule does not apply if you specify a DSN=xxx parameter and code your connection parameter values inside the DSN: the values specified in the outer connection string, including the values appended by Foxhound will be used instead.

Tip: Foxhound comes with several pre-defined connection strings, and later upgrades may add more. Feel free to delete or edit these strings as you wish; depending on how your computer is set up you may have to change some of them so they will work properly.

The button clears the Name: and String: fields.

The button displays several examples of connection parameters, and hides them again. Click on an example to paste it into the String: field.

The button saves the String: field in the Foxhound database with Name: as the identifier. This will do an update or insert depending on whether Name: already exists or not.

The button deletes the connection string identified by Name: from the Foxhound database.

Tip: To rename an existing connection string, type the new Name and Save the string, then Choose and Delete the string with the old name.

The Password: field is optional; you don't need to fill it in if your connection string includes a value.

Check Include system tables if you want the Display Schema page to include the SQL Anywhere catalog tables and views; e.g., ISYSTAB and SYSTABLE.

The button connects to the target database and opens the Display Schema page in the current browser window or tab.

The button saves the connection string and then opens the Monitor Database page in the current browser window or tab. If a sampling session already exists for this connection string, sample data from that session will be displayed. If not, Foxhound will start a new sampling session and display that data.


1.4 The Monitor Tab    [Top]

The Monitor tab lists all the sampling sessions that have been created. When this tab is displayed, it is refreshed every 10 seconds with the most recent data. It is also refreshed whenever you switch to it from the DSN or String tab.

The button starts all the sampling sessions in the list that aren't already running.

If there are a large number of sampling sessions, it might take a while for them to all start.

The Start All Sampling button will not affect any sampling sessions that have a Sample Schedule in effect. If sampling is under the control of a Sample Schedule, you can't stop and start sampling manually, you have to adjust (or turn off) the schedule on the Monitor Options page.

The button stops all the sampling sessions in the list that are currently running.

The Stop All Sampling button will not affect any sampling sessions that have a Sample Schedule in effect. If sampling is under the control of a Sample Schedule, you can't stop and start sampling manually, you have to adjust (or turn off) the schedule on the Monitor Options page.

The button immediately updates the information displayed on this tab without waiting for the regular refresh.

If the display is paused but sampling sessions are running, you can press Refresh Display to show the most recent information without restarting the automatic refresh process.

The (number) in parentheses in the Refresh Display button tells you how many times this page has been refreshed.

The button stops the Monitor page from being refreshed every 10 seconds, and the button starts it again.

Neither button affects the background sampling process one way or the other. For example, if sampling sessions are running and you press Disable Refresh and later press Enable Refresh, the displayed data "catches up" with the most recent information.

The Show Monitor... column displays the DSN: and String: names used to identify the sampling sessions. You can click on one of these links to open the Monitor Database page in a new browser window or tab.

If the GlobalDBId property is set to a non-default value, that value will be shown in (parentheses) after the name in the Show Monitor... column. This makes it easier to tell different remote databases apart in a replicating or synchronizing environment.

Each History link in the Show... column lets you open the History page for that database in a new browser window or tab.

Each Options link in the Show... column lets you open the Monitor Options page for that database in a new browser window or tab.

The Active Alerts column shows how many Alerts are currently in effect (not yet All Clear or Cancelled) for this database. Values in this column are links that let you jump down to the corresponding Active Alerts... section at the bottom of this page.

The Sampling column tells you whether the sampling session is Running or Stopped.

The Status column tells you if everything is OK with the sampling session, or what kind of problem occurred. A dash "-" is displayed when the session was stopped with the Stop button.

Heartbeat, Conns, Waiting Req:

Locks Held, Conns Blocked:

These numbers are based on the LockCount and BlockedOn properties. The Conns Blocked column will be empty if connection details are not being recorded; see Foxhound Options - Connection sampling threshold.

The CPU Time column shows the percent used during the preceding interval.

This number is based on the following properties: NumLogicalProcessorsUsed, NumProcessorsAvail, NumProcessorsMax and ProcessCPU.

The Temp Space column shows the total amount of temporary space used by all the connections.

Temporary pages are used for many purposes, most often to hold intermediate results during query processing. Even if there is no temporary file, as with an in-memory no write database, temporary space is allocated and used by the engine.

This column is based on the PageSize and TempFilePages properties, and it will be empty if connection details are not being recorded; see Foxhound Options - Connection sampling threshold.

Disk Reads, Writes:

These numbers are based on the DiskRead and DiskWrite properties.

The Stop link lets you stop the sampling session. This doesn't delete the session, it just suspends the sampling process.

The "...Sample Schedule in effect" link may appear instead of Stop, Start and Delete. If sampling is under the control of a Sample Schedule, you can't stop and start sampling manually, you have to adjust (or turn off) the schedule on the Monitor Options page.

The Cancel link may appear instead of Stop. The Cancel button lets you stop further attempts to start or re-start the sampling session. If Foxhound can't connect to the target database, it will keep trying forever, unless you press Cancel or the connection timeout period is exceeded. See the Foxhound Options page for more information on connection timeouts.

The Start link tells Foxhound to try to start the sampling session.

The Delete link will delete the sampling session. This takes effect immediately, and is permanent; the sample data is no longer available for display. Also see the Foxhound Options page for more information on purging old sample data.

Note: The phrase "is permanent" means there is no "cancel" or "undo" facility. It doesn't mean you can't ever gather samples for this database again; you just have click on the Monitor Database button to start another sample session.

Each database with one or more Alerts in effect (not yet All Clear or Cancelled) will have a corresponding Active Alerts... section at the bottom of this page. Each Alert has a link to open a History page for this database showing the corresponding Alert entry.

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