CapiDog

ISDN monitor for Windows

How it works, what it does
Installation, uninstallation
Options of CapiDog
Questions and answers
Useful links

CapiDog is a freeware from Shamrock Software for all 32-bit Windows versions. Note that Shamrock does not offer hotline support for freeware and does not guarantee the function in a specific environment. Copying the program or this documentation to Internet sites other than the Shamrock site or to a CDROM without an explicit permission from Shamrock Software is illegal and violates copyright laws and regulations. Version info:

1.54 31.10.18 IE Display for log file
1.52 14.02.11 Further imprivements of channel indicators
1.51 02.02.11 Corrected busy channel indication
1.49 27.08.08 Controller no. configuration for status display
1.48 29.05.08 Changed window title to "Shamrock CapiDog".

How it works, what it does

CapiDog shows which bearer channels (B channels) are in use on an ISDN S0 line. A task bar symbol shows two colored squares, one for each channel. A popup window displays the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls. If CapiCall is installed on the same PC, even the names corresponding to these numbers are displayed if they are found in the CapiCall phone book. Connections can be logged with time, number and duration. For finding ISDN problems, a D channel trace can be written.

CapiDog requires an ISDN adapter with a special CAPI 2.0 extension. Adapters from AVM (driver release 3.08 and higher), Scitel (autumn 2000 or later) or Gerdes/Primux are suitable. CapiDog will not work after you start another application which monitors the D channel, like AVM IWatch.

An ISDN adapter only can "see" information coming from the public switch or PABX, so CapiDog is somewhat limited in what it can display.

Installation, uninstallation

There is no dedicated "setup" program for CapiDog. Simply extract the file CDOGENGL.ZIP into a new empty folder like C:\Shamrock\Capidog using WinZip or a similar unzip program and then create an entry in the Startup folder (Windows Start - Programs - Startup; see Windows Help how to do this):

C:\Shamrock\CapiDog\CapiDog.exe

Important: Do not install CapiDog below C:\Program Files!

Windows 7 or Vista: Do not use C:\Program Files for installation. Due to the file virtualization in the newer Widnows versions you would not be able to view e.g. a log or trace file in another program like an editor.
Also, if you are using Windows with restricted privileges you should not copy CapiDog to C:\Program Files since writing files may be impossible there.

When CapiDog is launched, an icon with two (initially green) squares will appear in the Windows system tray. The colors of these squares show the status of the two ISDN channels:

	free
	calling
	in use

If you click on this symbol with the primary mouse button, the CapiDog Window appears (or disappears) showing the calling and called number if available (see FAQ). The menu language is English, if the file ENGLISH.CD is present. If you install the CapiCall voice mailbox software, the CapiDog menu language will depend on the CapiCall language setting. The symbols in CapiDog have these functions:

Open log file (if present),
Delete log (if present),
Show trace (if present),
Stop alarm (if in alarm state),
Help (this manual).

These functions are also available in the CapiDog menu. This also contains a Reset option which deletes a trace file (if present) and resets all channels to their "green" state after possible d-channel synchronization problems.

In addition, you will get a context menu when clicking on the CapiDog system tray symbol using the secondary mouse button.

You can drag the column header in the CapiDog window to change the width of the columns.
With File/Configuration you can disable the symbols to get a smaller window size.

To deinstall CapiDog later, simply delete the CapiDog folder and use a text editor to delete the [CapiDog] part of WIN.INI in the windows directory.

Options of CapiDog

There is a trace option in the CapiDog main window which can be used for in-depth ISDN analysis:

Trace: Creates a text file TRACE.TXT. You should activate this option for a limited time only because this file can get quite big. The interpretation of this D-channel trace requires special knowledge.

Other options are available via "Configuration" in the "File" menu:

Play sounds for line states: When this option is activated and a call is detected, the wave files klingeln.wav, connect.wav, ruf.wav and hangup.wav are played.
Write log file: This option will create a line in CAPIDOG.TXT for each incoming or outgoing call, including the numbers, date, time, and service code.
Adjust PC clock to ISDN time: Snychronizes the PC clock with the ISDN time which is sent from the public switch for each outgoing call. Only the minutes and seconds are adjusted so that you can run your PC with a different time zone than the one your ISDN provider uses. (Not all telcom companies provide the time information.)
Popup window on incoming or outgoing calls: If activated, the CapiDog window will pop up for each incoming or outgoing call. Even if this option is off, the window will pop up if a number is called which starts with 0900. This is a protection against trojan-horse dialers which sometimes cause unwanted expensive connections.
Show symbol menu line: This option can be used to disable the symbols for having a smaller CapiDog window.
Support for Shamrock popup: If enabled, CapiDog will send mailslot packets, so calls can be displayed on other network computers using the popup program (requires Shamrock NetMail to be installed on the server).
Display status for controller no.: If you have more than one ISDN card in your PC (or a multi-S0 card), then you can select for which controller (bus) the status is displayed in the system tray.
Layer 2 trace: Adds SABM, DISC and RR packets to the trace (if enabled). Be aware that may create a large trace file since RR packets are sent even without a connection.
Trace only for these controllers: Configures for which controllers a file TRACEx.TXT will be written if an ISDN card with multiple busses or several ISDN cards (from the same manufacturer!) are built into the PC.

The list Show warnings for contains a list of expensive premium-rate numbers, and Show no warnings can be used to define exceptions. For instance, if you enter 0191 for "show warnings", you might enter the T-Online number 01910 as an exception in "show no warnings".

In the optional log file, the service code is stored numerically only. Typical values are:

ISDN service codes in CAPI 2.0
1 Speech 2 Data/standard 3 Data/restricted 4 Speech 3.1 kHz 5 Speech 7 kHz 6 Video 7 Packet Mode 8 Adapt. 56 kBit/s 9 Data+messages 16 Digital speech	17 Fax G2/3 18 Fax G4-I 19 Fax G4-II/III 20,21,23 Telex 22 Videotex 24 X.400/E-Mail 25 X.200/OSI Layer 26 Speech 7 kHz 27 Video phone L1 28 Video phone L2

Questions and answers

Why is CapiDog only suitable for AVM, Scitel and Primux/Gerdes ISDN adapters?

CapiDog uses undocumented, manufacturer-specific extensions of the CAPI 2.0 driver to log D-channel information. Please note that Shamrock will not answer questions about these undocumented extensions.

Why can't I delete 0900 from the blacklist?

Instead of doing this, you may add specific 0900 numbers to the whitelist, like 090012345, and thus avoid an alarm when they are dialled.

Sometimes the destination number is not displayed for outgoing calls - why?

For outgoing calls, the destination number can only be detected if the public switch reflects it as "called number" since the ISDN adapter cannot see the data sent by an ISDN telephone even if it is connected to the same bus.

Sometimes the MSN and service code of outgoing calls are not displayed - why?

If the call is not initiated by the ISDN adapter itself, but by an ISDN telephone, for instance, CapiDog cannot see this information.

Sometimes one channel stays red even if there is no connection. Why?

CapiDog can only listen passively on the ISDN bus and cannot request retries of lost data packets. When errors occur on the ISDN bus, or a connection breaks without disconnecting properly, CapiDog will be unable to detect the end of a connection. In this case, simply select the Reset option in the CapiDog menu.

What means something like 1234 < 5678 in the MSN field?

If there is a second number in the MSN field this means that a call has been redirected; in the above case, the caller originally called 5678, but the call was deflected to 1234. Please note that not all switches and PBX systems support this function.

Nothing is displayed if I am using an analogue telephone. Why?

If you connect CapiDog to an internal ISDN outlet of a PBX, it will "see" only things that happen on that internal bus. If an analogue phone is used to call an external number, the internal ISDN bus is not involved. To avoid this problem, you may connect the ISDN adapter to the external ISDN bus instead.

Sometimes the caller's number seems to be incomplete.

This is a bug in the AVM CAPI 2.0 driver releases up to 3.07xx. You will see the release number in the status bar at the bottom of the CapiDog window. If the number is below 3.08, update your driver from the AVM web site.

Useful links

If you have questions or suggestions, please go to https://www.shamrock.de/en/ and write us a message. This is also where you might find an updated version of this software. Here are some more links with useful information about ISDN:

www.etsi.org: ETSI documents (e.g. Q.921, Q.931)
www.capi.org: Information about the CAPI standard
www.shamrock.de: ISDN voice mailbox, fax server