PMDF Statistics
Chapter 8
Release notes for Version 3.1
The only difference between 3.1 and 3.0 is added support for OpenVMS
IA64. The rest of this chapter describes the changes made from version
2.6 to version 3.0
8.1 Functional Enhancements
The following are functional enhancements to that of the base 2.6
version.
8.1.1 Summary Reports
In addition to the traditional matrix report, PMDF-Stats can now
produce a summary report. This report contains a one line summary for
each group, reporting the total number and volume of messages into and
out of that group. In addition, it can include the number of mailboxes
(unique localparts) found within the records for each group.
8.1.2 Site Reports
PMDF-Stats can now produce a separate summary report for each group
(each in its own file). This contains the same information from the
overall Summary Report for this group, as well as extra information
about fax and service group usage. In addition, PMDF-Stats can list all
the localparts found in records for this group, together with the total
number and volume of mail sent and received by that user.
8.1.3 Transit Statistics
PMDF-Stats can produce transit statistics for each destination group by
calculating the average time lapse between "E" and "D" records for each
message.
8.1.4 Fax Analysis
PMDF-Stats can now anaylze records produced by the PMDF-Fax layered
products. It processes the "S" records produced by the g3_to_fax
channel to produce statistics of the total fax transmit time and total
number of pages sent.
8.1.5 Mailbox Reporting
PMDF-Stats can now track overall mailbox utilization (localparts). The
results can be displayed in the Summary and Site reports.
8.1.6 New /ADDRESS qualifier
The /ADDRESS qualifier can be used as an alternative to the /SENDER and
/RECEIVER qualifiers. The /ADDRESS qualifier will cause PMDF-Stats to
select records that contain the specified address in either
the sender or recipient address.
8.1.7 New /SKIP_CHANNEL qualifier
The /SKIP_CHANNEL qualifier causes PMDF-Stats to disregard records
produced by intermediate channels. Before this, in order to avoid
counting twice mail messages that traversed intermediate channels, it
was necessary to omit the "logging" keyword on them, or to prefilter
such records prior to analysis.
8.1.8 Changes to Group File Format
The format of the Group Definition file has been extended to provide
for the specification of long group names (used in the summary and site
reports) and flag keywords (used to specify which groups are to be
analyzed for mailbox statistics, which are fax groups etc). The new
format is upward compatible with the old one, unless you were using any
of the following characters in the group name: "[", "(", ")", "]".
8.2 Bug Fixes
The following bugs were fixed (where patches were provided to the 2.6
release, the release version information is provided in parentheses).
8.2.1 Elimination of format overflows
In previous versions of PMDF-Stats, large numeric output could result
in format overflows. This was frequently true of large volumes of mail
traffic. In Version 3.x, volumes are expressed as floating point
numbers in megabytes rather than kilobyte integers. If an output value
(integer or floating point) does not fit in the field, it is converted
to exponential format.
8.2.2 Added support for "tagged" fields in MAIL.LOG
Add support for changes to the MAIL.LOG format in PMDF 5.2. They
introduced a new field between the sender and recipient addresses. This
new field has a "rfc822;" prefix which we check for. Any fields with a
prefix tag are ignored (2.6-3).
8.2.3 Bug in /INCOMING qualifier
Due to changes in the size of the time field in PMDF 5.2 (extended to
centiseconds), selection of records using the /INCOMING qualifier would
fail to match the channel (2.6-4).
8.2.4 Support for multicharacter code field
PMDF 6.0 introduced additional code fields, including code fields that
exceed one character in length. Previous versions of PMDF-Stats would
not recognize records containing these codes (the problem was limited
to records produced by SASL or TLS SMTP channels). PMDF-Stats 3.x
recognizes and handles these code fields.
8.2.5 Recognition of Abbreviated Qualifiers
PMDF-Stats will now regard /OUT as a valid abbreviation for /OUTPUT,
and /TO as an abbreviation for /TO_GROUP. Previously these would be
regarded as ambiguous as they would clash with /OUTGOING and /TOTAL.
8.2.6 Support for additional PMDF Options
Prior to 3.0, the use of the LOG_NODE and LOG_PROCESS options in the
PMDF Option File would cause PMDF-Stats to fail. This was because these
options caused PMDF to insert extra fields between the time field and
the incoming channel name. In addition, these fields to not contain
'tag' prefixes. PMDF-Stats 3.x now recognizes the presence of these
extra fields and skips them.
8.2.7 Non-standard Records being selected incorrectly
Fixed bug whereby non-standard records (i.e. those with codes other
than E, D or R) would be selected if the user specified filters such as
size or address qualifiers.
8.2.8 Documentation
PMDF-Stats documentation has been rewritten using DEC Document. This
allows the documentation to be shipped in the following formats:
- Postscript
- HTML
- Plain Text
Note that LN03 format is no longer provided.