PPL Auditing

Introduction

You enable PPL Auditing for each card individually, using the PPL Audit Configure message. When PPL Auditing is enabled on a card, all state machine activity on the card is recorded in an audit log on either a per-PPL component basis or an individual entity basis.

The PPL Audit Configure message accepts and validates all AIBs that correspond to the provided component ID. A message received with a Slot AIB will be processed as in previous releases. A message received with an AIB, other than a Slot AIB, will be processed as an Individual Entity Audit configuration message.

The Audit Type field is a bit mask that provides bits 0 through 3 to enable or disable PPL Auditing features on a component or entity basis. For example, setting bit 0 enables PPL auditing. See the PPL Audit Configure message for the Audit Type information. If a card has PPL Auditing enabled, the activities of each PPL component are recorded in an audit log. The entries in the audit log represent a state transition on a specific entity (channel).

There are two new bit options in the Audit Type field. Bit 3 allows configuration of individual entities, and bit 2 enables the configuration. Both bits can be set at the same time or bit 2 can be enabled or disabled at any time to activate or deactivate individual auditing.

PPL Components

To support PPL Auditing on an Entity basis, the PPL Audit Configure message supports AIBs that are associated with the following PPL components:

E1 (0x0001)

T1 (0x0003)

ISDN L3P Call Control (0x0005)

ISDN L3 Call Reference (0x0008)

SS7 L3P CIC (0x000F)

SS7 ISUP CPC (0x0012)

Channel Management (0x0061)

Call Management (0x0062)

PPL Audit Query

The PPL Audit Query message supports Slot AIB, and all AIBs that are associated with the PPL components. This message supports the querying of all PPL Audit configurations. For example, when this occurs a single byte of Audit configuration data will be returned. This byte will contain the current settings for board level PPL Auditing, board level PPL Error Alarm settings, and Individual PPL Auditing.

If the AIB specifies an entity other than a Slot AIB, the byte will also contain entity level PPL Auditing and entity level Error Alarm settings. For example, this information will be queried by setting the Audit Type to 0x02 in the PPL Audit Query message. The PPL Audit Query message Audit Types are as follows:

An Audit Type of (0x00) requests the PPL Audit information for the specified entity.

An Audit Type of (0x01) requests a PPL ERROR audit on a per card basis.

An Audit Type of (0x02) requests the current PPL Audit configuration. It will return a PPL Audit Query response containing the status, the AIB, the component ID, the Audit Type, and an Audit Configure byte containing the current Audit Configuration setting. The slot AIB will be supported when the Audit Type is Audit Configuration (0x02). The bits (0 through 4) of the Audit Configuration byte are listed in the PPL Audit Query message.

Audit Data

The length of the audit entries and the specific data logged depend upon the PPL component and upon the type of audit. See the PPL Audit Query message for the specific data returned. The following information is included in all audit entries:

Protocol ID

State Status

Protocol-Specific Information

PPL Event

Initial State

Next State

Error Status

Timestamp

Retrieving an Audit Log

To retrieve an audit log, send a PPL Audit Query message. There are two audit query types:

PPL State Transitions

PPL Errors

The host queries the CSP about PPL state transitions for each PPL component and entity. The CSP reports all state transitions for a specified PPL component on a specified entity. The host queries the CSP about PPL errors for each PPL component and card. The CSP reports all PPL errors for the specified PPL component on the specified card.

You cannot retrieve an entire log with one message. Audit entries are grouped into audit blocks. When you query a log, specify Audit Block 0 in the first message, Audit Block 1 in the second message, and so on until all audit entries have been returned. When there are no audit entries remaining, the response status to the PPL Audit Query message indicates 0xD7 (End of PPL Audit Data).

PPL Error Alarm

If you enable the PPL Error Alarm, the host is notified with an Alarm message when a PPL error occurs on an entity. The PPL Error Alarm is enabled by setting bit 1 of the Audit Type field in the PPL Audit Configure message. The Alarm message indicates Entity - 0x04 (Channel) and Alarm - 0x03 (PPL Error). The Alarm Information fields contain the audit entry data from the PPL Audit log.