Miscellany

If you want to generate all the graphs, use the -G option. If you want monochrome plots, use the -M option. For the sake of completeness, the -C option produces color plots (which of course is the default behavior).

In all the above graphs, the X-axis represents the actual time of the connection. If you want relative time with time beginning at 0, use the -zx option while generating the graphs. The Y-axis can also be made to begin from 0 with the -zy option. This is generally useful in Time Sequence graphs, where the sequence offset rather than the actual sequence number values may be desired. Figure 5.4 shows a section of a Time Sequence graph generated with -zxy option, causing both the axes to begin from 0.

If you would rather have the graphs generated be placed in a separate directory, and not clutter your working directory, use the -output_dir option. For example,

tcptrace -G --output_dir=graphs indica.dmp

would leave all the graphs in the graphs directory.

Now, if you are using the same graphs directory to store the graphs generated from another file mangifera.dmp, the old *.xpl files from indica.dmp may get over-written by the new *.xpl files. You may wish to use the -output_prefix option to fix this. For example,

tcptrace -G --output_dir=graphs --output_prefix=mangifera_ mangifera.dmp

would generate files of the form mangifera_a2b_tsg.xpl in the graphs directory.

tcptrace can also call xplot internally to pop-up the graphs generated at the end of processing the dumpfile(s) with the -xplot_all_files option. For example,

tcptrace -S --xplot_all_files elephus.dmp
This would pop-up all the Time Sequence graphs generated for the dumpfile elephus.dmp, which could be a lot depending on the number of connections found. This option is meant for use when there are a few connections in the dumpfile, unless you want your screen to be filled with xplot graphs. While using this option, any options that need to be given to xplot for drawing the graphs can also be specified with the ``-xplot_args=. . .'' option, where the ``. . .'' is the place-holder for any xplot options to be set, while calling xplot internally from tcptrace . If multiple options are being passed to xplot, it is recommended that the entire option be enclosed in double quotes as shown above, to protect it from being interpreted as multiple command-line arguments by your Shell.

A user-defined prefix may be added to the title of the xplot graphs if necessary, by passing the prefix in the -xplot_title_prefix=''...'' option.


Super-User 2003-08-29