Iris provides an assortment of tools to help you search, sort, and limit searches. Some of the most significant are the column text filters, the filter checkbox, and the sort arrows. These tools can easily be used in combination with each other.

Tool tips also provide valuable pointers about Iris functions and navigation, and colors and asterisks provide at-a-glance information about port status and sharing.

Column text filters

The text entry boxes at the top of each column allow you to restrict your search results to entries containing that string. When you add text to one of the column filters, its checkbox is also marked to indicate that a restriction is being placed on your results.

Filter checkbox

If you want to broaden your search scope again, unchecking the checkbox by your filter text will clear the restrictions on that column and return a broader list. I

Sort arrows

The diamond patterns beside the column headers indicate that no directional sort has been applied to that column yet. When you click on a diamond, it changes to a directional arrow and the table is resorted by that field.

Using multiple options together

These tools are most powerful when used in combination. For example, you can quickly isolate any UIUC networks to which you have write permission by entering "uiuc" in the network filter field and "w" in the permissions field.

Tool tips

You can view tool tips by hovering your mouse over a link or image and waiting for a couple of seconds. A small box with tool tip text will appear beside your mouse pointer.

For example, from a Port Status Overview page, the links in the Port column have tool tips that say "View detailed information". You can see more about the port, but it will take another click to get to an editing screen.

However, the other four links in each row have tool tips that say "Edit port information". Clicking on any of these links will take you directly to the Edit Port Settings page.

Colors and asterisks

There are two areas where color provides convenient at-a-glance information: in the status column and in the port number column of a port containing more than one MAC address.

Status column: Colors

In the Status column, "up", "down", and "disabled" are indicated with colors as well as text in order to simplify skimming. Up is marked with green; down is marked with red; and disabled is marked with blue.

Multiple addresses per port: Colors and asterisks

In the majority of cases, an active port will have one MAC address attached to it. However, in some cases, more than one MAC address can be associated with a port. The most common causes are as follows:

• A hub, departmental switch, or mini switch is attached to the switch port, and more than one computer is attached to the connected network device.
• The port is attached to a wireless access point currently in use by more than one computer.\
• Virtual machines running on a physical computer

When a port has more than one MAC address assigned to it, the port ID is starred so that a distinct entry for each duplicate can be shown in the MAC address view.

All instances sharing the same port ID are marked with the same color; if more than one port contains multiple MAC addresses, each grouping is assigned its own color.

In addition, every shared port ID has an asterisk appended to it, so that you can quickly isolate shared ports by placing * in the Port filter field.