Configure SDN Interface using the command prompt

Applies to: Lync Server 2013 | Skype for Business 2015 | Skype for Business 2019

Most settings used by the Dialog Listener and SDN Manager are kept in the central data store (local cache, SQL Server database, or Redis cache) that is managed by the configuration service. These settings can be accessed and modified through a command line tool (SDNManager.exe). SDNManager.exe can also get and set limits for quality metrics of call streams from the QoEMetrics database.

Configuration settings are divided into three groups:

• Manager. (m)anager settings are used by the SDN Manager component.

• Listener. (l)istener settings are used by the Dialog Listener component installed on a specified pool of Skype for Business Server front end machines. When a Dialog Listener installed on a new pool connects to the configuration service (which is running on an SDN Manager) a new group of Dialog Listener settings is generated for the fully qualified domain name of the Skype for Business Server front end pool.

• Subscriber. (s)ubscriber settings are used for a specified receiver of the media stream, call, and quality messages. You need to manually create a settings group for each receiver.

This article contains the following section:

• Command-line commands
• Example commands for viewing settings
• SDN manager configuration settings
• Dialog Listener configuration settings
• Subscriber configuration settings

Command-line commands

The command-line executable, SDNManager.exe, is located in the SDN Manager installation directory, which by default is located at C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Skype for Business Server\\Microsoft Skype for Business SDN Manager. The command-line interface provides three categories of commands:

• CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operation commands on listener, subscriber, and manager settings.
• A command to download and sync threshold limit settings from the QoEMetrics database.
• Replay recorded log commands, which are debugging and test operations. For more information, see Debugging the SDN Interface SDN Manager.

Each command allows you to explicitly specify the URI and, if necessary, client certificate thumbprint to connect to the configuration service to update settings or to the SDN Manager service to execute a replay file.

To access help on the available commands, enter the following at the command prompt: C:\\ > SDNManager.exe /?. The command produces the following output:

Skype for Business SDN Manager  3.0, Build Version: 7.0.1459.1
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
    /?        Help
     /status [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Retrieve some statistics mostly related to Listners connections

    /subscriberstatus subscriberid [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Retrieve some statistics about the connection to each subscriber
    /u(pload) m(anager) filename [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
    /u(pload) s(ubscriber) subscriberid filename [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
    /u(pload) l(istener) dialoglistenerid filename [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Upload & store
                    configuration into the datastore
                    through the SDN Manager service referred to by the url or the local service
                    using the client certificate thumbprint.
    /d(ownload) m(anager) [filename] [http(s)://site/Settings] [thumbprint]
    /d(ownload) s(ubscriber) [subscriberid] [filename] [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
    /d(ownload) l(istener) [dialoglistenerid] [filename] [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Download configuration from the store into a local file from the
                    SDN Manager service (referred to by the url or the local service)
                    using the client certificate thumbprint.
    /p(arameter) m(anager) name=value [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
    /p(arameter) s(ubscriber) subscriberid name=value [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
    /p(arameter) l(istener) dialoglistenerid name=value [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Set an individual
                    configuration value in the SDN Manager service (referred to by the url
                    or the local service) using the client certificate thumbprint.
    /r(emove) s(ubscriber) subscriberid [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
    /r(emove) l(istener) dialoglistenerid [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Remove or reset a settings group
                    in the SDN Manager service (referred to by the url
                    or the local service) using the client certificate thumbprint.
    /e filename [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Send content of the file as messages to the
                    SDN Manager service (referred to by the url or the local service)
                    using the client certificate thumbprint
                    and process these messages.
    /et filename [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Send content of file as messages to the
                    SDN Manager service (referred to by the url or the local service)
                    using the client certificate thumbprint
                    and process these messages with the given timing preserved.
    /q dbserver [user] [password] [http(s)://site] [thumbprint]
             ....   Retrieve threshold values from a QoE database with the specified user
                    name and password and store them in the SDN Manager service
                    (referred to by the url or the local service)
                    using the client certificate thumbprint.
      []  ... optional parameter
      Example for SDNManager uris: http://server:9333/Settings or http://localhost:9333/DL

Example commands for viewing settings

Use the following example commands to view settings.

• Sdnmanager.exe d l

  Displays all configured Dialog Listener settings. You will get one record after a Dialog Listener has started up and requested settings.

• Sdnmanager.exe d s

  Displays all configured subscriber settings.

• Sdnmanager.exe p s mynms submituri=http://my_nms/sdn

  Modifies the submituri setting for my_nms or creates new settings group for my_nms if one does not already exist. Similarly, you can then modify other settings to adjust the output behavior (signaling, quality, sendrawsdp, and so forth).

• Sdnmanager.exe d s mynms mysettings.xml https://sdnhost:9333/Settings ‎23991123649b4cfcb48ccf14f2d08601221caa2c

  Connects to a configuration service running on sdnpool using https; a client certificate selected using its thumbprint is used to authenticate the request. The request downloads the mynms subscriber settings and saves them in the mysettings.xml file.

• Sdnmanager.exe u s mynms mysettings.xml

  Upload settings saved using the previous commands.

For a complete example of the output, see Appendix to Skype for Business SDN Interface. In addition, you can get all the threshold settings from the Skype for Business Server QoEMetrics database. The SDN Manager uses the downloaded thresholds to update the corresponding manager settings, as shown here C:\\>SDNManager.exe /q mySfB_BackEnd\\monitoring. In the example, the fragment mySfB_BackEnd\\monitoring represents the SQL Server instance hosting the Skype for Business Server QoEMetrics database. The command updates the threshold limits used to determine stream quality.

SDN manager configuration settings

The manager settings group provides settings for the general operation of the SDN Manager. An example of the output of the manager settings can be found in the Appendix to Skype for Business SDN Interface.

In addition to these configuration settings, the configuration file also contains a list of threshold values used by SDN Manager to determine stream quality. These threshold values are used for determining call quality.

There are two threshold values for each metric: Optimal and Acceptable. The values define the three quality bands for each modality. For a call stream to have the Good quality, all the quality metrics must be below (better than) the Optimal level. A call is of Poor quality when all the metrics are below the Acceptable threshold and one or more of them are above the Optimal threshold. A call is Bad when one or more of the metrics are above (worse than) the Acceptable threshold.

You can modify these threshold settings by using the SDNManager.exe /p the /q command. The /p command updates the value individually and the /q command downloads and updates all of the threshold settings from the Skype for Business Server QoEMetrics database.

Dialog Listener configuration settings

The listener settings group contains settings for the Dialog Listener running on a pool of Skype for Business front-end servers. Each server pool connected to the configuration service has its own settings group; however, all server front-ends in the pool use the same settings. Each pool is identified by its pool fully qualified domain name. You can find examples of output for the listener settings in the Appendix to Skype for Business SDN Interface.

Subscriber configuration settings

The subscriber settings group describes the behavior that each subscriber expects. You can see an example of output from subscriber settings in the Appendix to Skype for Business SDN Interface.

See also

• Configuring Skype for Business SDN Interface
• Skype for Business SDN Interface Schema Reference