Paragon-X: How to use the GUI

I've installed the Paragon-X software and connected the hardware to my PC. How do I now use the GUI to configure and run Paragon-X?

Information on how to use the software to control Paragon-X and make measurements can be found in the Getting Started Guide which is available from the Help→User Guides menu in the Paragon-X GUI. A short summary is also provided below.

 The buttons on the left side of the GUI follow an approximate workflow for connecting to and configuring Paragon-X, and then performing a measurement:

Start Up - allows you to specify the IP address of the Paragon-X to be used and connect to/disconnect from it.

Operating mode - selects the mode of operation of Paragon-X. PTP measurements use the 1588v2 mode, with Master-Slave Emulation (for one-box device testing) available depending on fitted options.

Setup Interface - access configuration settings for line rates and media for connections to the device under test, the clock and/or 1PPS references to be used, and serial port settings for Time of Day measurements.

Master/Slave/GPS Emulation - if fitted, allows the one-box testing of your device under test as Paragon-X emulates both a master and slave PTP device. Dropdown menus allow the easy selection of various device types (boundary clock, transparent clock, master, slave etc.) and profile to be tested to (G8265.1, G.8275.1, 802.1AS-rev etc.), with full manual configuration also available for all settings should the defaults not cover your specific requirements. When selecting a device type, the graphic changes to show how the DUT should be connected:


 

     

If manual configuration changes are made when a profile is selected, the profile name will remain selected unless a change is made which is outside the acceptable parameters for that profile, in which case Custom Profile will be displayed. Selecting a within-bounds value for that parameter will not reset the profile name; to ensure that a valid set of parameters are used for a given profile you should re-select it from the dropdown menu:

 

Measurements - allows the configuration of whether SyncE wander, T1/E1/10Mhz clock and/or 1PPS signals will be captured.

Select Flow - by default, a measurement will capture all packets seen on the Paragon-X interfaces. The Select Flow interface allows you to perform an all-packets capture then have the app analyse this to identify PTP message flows from which you can then select the data of interest. This may be of particular use when you're using thru mode (when many devices may be exchanging data) or have a traffic generator creating device loading.

Configure Capture - sample rates, ToD message types, and other settings which affect how the captured data should be handled may be configured via this button. Whether a capture should run for a specified time or will be started and stopped manually is also set here.

Start Capture - starts capturing data according to all the above-configured settings. Once a capture is started, the button legend will change to Stop Capture, which can be used to stop the running capture.

Add Impairments/Delay - various types of predefined or user-configured delays and packet corruption may be configured using this interface. Note that you must also use the Flow Filter item at the top of the menu list in this window to select to which message types and device pairings these should be applied.

Add Wander - allows the configuration and application of a number of frequency deviations for testing SyncE tolerance, transfer and transient behaviour of a DUT.

Add Jitter - allows the SyncE jitter performance of a DUT to be tested (only available in SyncE mode).

Packet Generation - use this dialogue to control the generation of ESMC messages and simple test packet loads. 

Statistics/Results - clicking this will display a window showing various information on errors, ESMC, jitter and packet data. Note that this doesn't display the captured PTP data: to view that, either navigate to the results using the Results button in the MSE window, or use the icons in the menu bar to display the tabulated data and/or graph:

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