Welcome to RasTracker(R) for the Microsoft Windows NT/2000(R) operating system. RasTracker(R) is a software solution designed to assist you in establishing RAS policies, tracking RAS usage by user/group/ports, producing statistics and usage information - to add invaluable functionality to your RAS toolkit.

Contents:

1. Installing RasTracker

2. Managing multiple RAS servers

3. What's new in Version 2.1?

4. Maintenance and Update history

1. Installing RasTracker.

The Management component of RasTracker (the GUI front-end) may be installed on NT 4.x or Windows 2000 workstations/servers. You may remotely administer your RasTracker server components.

The Server component may be installed on NT 4.x/2000 computers equipped with the Microsoft RAS or RRAS software. NOTE: The RAS Service must be stopped prior to installing the RasTracker Server component. The software does not support Windows 2000 only domains.

Before you go ahead and install any of the RasTracker components, make sure you have your license details handy. If this is a purchased copy of RasTracker you should have received a license key from your software supplier. If you are evaluating and do not already have an evaluation license, please contact NORTHERN (Support@NorthernParklife.com) to receive your free 30-day evaluation key.

1a. Microsoft RRAS Installation Note:

RasTracker will only work together with Microsoft RRAS if the Microsoft RRAS hotfix 1.0 (or higher) has been applied. This hotfix can be downloaded from:

http://www.microsoft.com/communications/rrashotfixdown-htm From Service Pack 4 and onwards though, this hotfix is included in Windows NT.

2.Managing multiple RAS servers

In order to manage more than one RAS server with RasTracker, you will need to install a RasTracker service on each RAS server. Each RasTracker service you install will communicate and store information (such as session events, user data, etc.) in a central database. This central database should reside on one of your computers where you run both RAS and RasTracker. In RasTracker terms, this computer will be refered to as the Primary RasTracker.

This topology is important for two reasons:

1. It will minimize network traffic from RasTrackers because only one database area will be updated and maintained.
2. It will enable all RasTracker server components to stay aware of what is going on (so that for example multiple concurrent logins with the same user account can be prohibited).

The computer which will act as the Primary RasTracker will maintain the database in the same directory where you have installed RasTracker. For example: if you are installing RasTracker into C:\Program Files\RasTrack, then this directory will be shared (by the setup program) and it will have the share name RT_NT_DB. The other RasTracker services will later need to access this share, in order to retrieve and store information.

After the multiple installation of RasTracker, please ensure that you modify the security permissions for the RT_NT_DB share, so that only administrators of RasTracker and the RasTracker services will have Full Control of the share.

3. What's new in 2.1?

• When users dial in with Callback, the number that is called back is logged and displayed in the Information column in the Log View.
• New GUI style with a navigation bar on the left-hand side.
• The GUI has been enhanced with a new multi threaded architecture to make it faster and easier to use.
• New icon indicators for each server that graphicaly indicate the status of the RAS server.
• Fault tolerance if a Primary RasTracker would go offline.
• Multiple Time Zone support in the GUI for log data and graphs.
• Width of columns and other customizations fully supported and retrievable.
• Byte in/out measurement per user.
• Print Previews offered for reporting.
• Many additional minor enhancements.

4. Maintenance and Updates

Version 2.0b maintenance:

• IP addresses sometimes displayed in reverse order with data from RRAS.
• Headers printed on all reports with date and page number.
• Usage view failed to display sessions going across midnight.
• RasTracker Administrator would sometimes crash when running towards an RRAS server with more than 16 ports.
• Statistics View now shows connections per hour, not disconnects per hour.

This was new in Version 2.0:

• Microsoft RRAS support. RasTracker now supports both RAS and the new RRAS (aka "Steelhead") product from Microsoft.
• Database (ODBC) integration. RasTracker can export all user data and session events to an ODBC-compliant database on a custom time schedule. This provides sites with the ability to create custom reports in MS Access or Seagate Crystal Reports, build their own Accounting applications, publish RAS usage information onto webservers etc.
• Graphical Port Utilization View. A new view lets you graphically view RAS traffic over a day. Quickly determine wheter you need more ports, spot usage trends over the day etc.
• Statistical View. A new view type that displays an instant report containing some statistical information, as well as a diagram showing the number of sessions per hour.
• Daily Admin Update. RasTracker can produce a daily email containing the latest RAS activities etc to be sent to the Administrator (sent every morning for example).
• Idle Session Guard. A new way of preventing users from staying logged on without using the link is implemented. The administrator can assign idle timeout limits per server, or per individual ports.
• NT Service. RasTracker now runs as an NT service, so that the security settings of the RasTracker database can be modified/ customized better than before.
• Simulate Sessions. A new and unique feature is the ability to simulate users dialing in to the RAS servers. Thanks to this feature, an Administrator can easyily verify settings, time limits etc set up in RasTracker without having to dial in manually.
• Mass Management. An administrator can now define or modify a single RasTracker profile, and by the click of a button, propagate this profile to multiple users.
• Auto Archive/Migrate. When RasTracker has been operating for a while, quite a lot of RAS session events etc will have been captured. A new archiving/migrate feature will automatically migrate data older than a defined number of days, to a storage area for old data.