kNetmon Documentation



1. Intro
2. Installing
3. Compiling
4. Configuration
5. Known problems



Intro

kNetmon is free software according to the GNU General Public License.

kNetmon provides you an easy to use interface to your local network. It is a bit similar to the "network neighbourhood" in the M$ Explorer, but additonally transparently supports Samba, NFS and Novell netware and many other network related tools (ping, talk, rlogin and so on).

Latest versions you can get from
http://www.rz.tu-ilmenau.de/~lekus/netmon.html

Features:


Requirements:

You need the following stuff:
Please tell me if you manage to compile kNetmon on another system than linux/pc.
Bug reports, comments, patches, suggestions ... to
alexander.neundorf@rz.tu-ilmenau.de




Installing:

Unpack knetmon-0.##.tgz (tar -zxvf knetmon-0.##.tgz), enter the new directory, then run configure, make and make install (in this order).
This should compile and install kNetmon on your system.
After make install you have to restart KPanel if you are using it.
Then you should find kNetmon in the start menu under "Internet".
If you want to install kNetmon manually:
-copy the binary knetmon/knetmon and knetmon/netmonwrapper in your KDE binary directory ($KDEDIR/bin)
-copy knetmon/knetmon.kdelnk in the location where your other *.kdelnk files are and restart kpanel
-create a directory $KDEDIR/share/doc/html/en/knetmon and copy the file index.html in this directory
-copy the files *.xpm to the directory $KDEDIR/share/icons/mini/
If kNetmon runs, you have to configure it (File->Configure). For more information about the configuration look under Configuration.

If you are connected to a Windows network, make sure that you have the right to execute smbmount, this means, that smbmount and smbumount must be installed suid root (the root of your system must set the "set user id on execution"-flag of both files).



Compiling:


Change to the directory knetmon-#.## and execute configure. After this execute make, then it should compile.
If you uncomment #define PING kNetmon will offer you a further method for retrieving a list of active hosts in your network, but this is not recommended, since this works not very stable and reliable.
If you uncomment #define DEBUG_ON in defines.h, you will get a lot of ugly debugging output from kNetmon.

If you are not able to compile it, please mail me: alexander.neundorf@rz.tu-ilmenau.de



Configuration:

If kNetmon runs you can configure it, you will find the configuration dialog under ->File->Configure .
kNetmon reads its configuration usually from the file ($KDEDIR)/share/config/knetmonrc and if this one doesn't exist from ($HOME)/.kde/share/config/knetmonrc.

Some tips for configuration


You are connected to a Windows network


Under Network-Settings:

Active workgroup:


Your user name:


Use NSLookup:


Use nmblookup:


Enable Samba support


Enable NFS support


Enable Novell support


Get browselist from:


Ask always for password and username


Samba is 2.0 or newer


Use workgroupname


Use guest login


Use IP address


Under GUI-Settings:

Use special talk program:


Use following xterm:


Start xterm with options:


Explore with:


Under More Settings:

Mount shares under:

Update period:

Patience time:


Check for binaries on startup


Unmount on exit






Known problems



In the case kNetmon didn't exit correctly, e.g. if you killed it using kill -9, all directories that were mounted by kNetmon are still mounted. If you want to unmount them all, run the script knetmon_cleanup. It is created automatically by kNetmon in your home directory. If kNetmon exits normally, this script will be empty.

If you are member of a NT-domain, you have to to enable the option Ask always for password and username, you version of Samba must be 2.0 or newer and you always have to use Mount/Explore using password, if you try without password, you might run into problems.

While kNetmon is updating its display and the tree is disabled, don't select anything from the menu, this might lead to problems.

If you mounted/unmounted something, kNetmon checks after some seconds (Patience time in the configuration dialog), if it was successful. If you unmount/mount this share before kNetmon did this check, it may also crash.

If it seems like mounting was successful (just enter "mount" to see what is mounted), but you are not able to look at the contents of the mounted directory, and your harddisk is working all the time, the reason could be that "Network block device support" isn't supported by your kernel. In this case you have to compile a new kernel or install the module nbd.

If kNetmon isn't able to mount Samba shares, at first take a look at the configuration dialog and try a bit. If this doesn't help, ensure that smbmount, smbmnt (for Samba 2.x) and smbumount are installed suid root. This means that the root must set the "set user id on execution" flag of these files.