Re: [Netdisco] Hi, how are you? [Newbie looking for direction]

[Andrew <hen...@gm...>]

Hi Charles,

Thanks for this.

I expect you can see I've downloaded your VMWare for NetDisco, thanks!
Hopefully this will provide me with an insight and possible test-bed (if I
can get it running:-).

This may sound silly, but where would I find the "Read-Only string for the
mac-address and arp
farming"? My knowledge of Switches is pretty limited, would it be possible
to -somehow- telenet onto a Switch (from it's IP maybe?) and run commands
(such as Show) to view Mac-to-Switch-Port details, all without knowing any
Switch Passwords/Strings ..if all I wanted to do was read what
Mac/Device associated with the Switch-Ports?

Agata may be throwing an additional spanner in my works at the moment, I'm
already starting to think I'm in too deep, without even installing NetDisco
:-/

A network guy at work demoed a hand-held device that when plugged into a
Data port, displayed (on a small screen) the Switch Port and Vlan
information without any passwords or anything. If the NetDisco path gets too
difficult for me to travel, would you know of any (free:-) software that
could be run on clients that would report back the Switch port thy were
attached to?

Any advice welcome,
Mogwai


On 5/27/08, Charles Goldsmith <wo...@ju...> wrote:
>
> Hello Andrew, something that possibly will help you out is
> http://wokka.org/netdisco/   I use this vmware at my job for our small
> network.  A large amount of network devices may not be feasible on the
> vm, unless you have some really strong hardware behind it and tweaking
> the freebsd install for the vm.
>
> For those of you who are new to the list, please do not forward that
> link to anything that will generate lots of traffic, keep it confined
> to this list server.
>
> There is no FAQ that I'm aware of.
>
> You will need the Read-Only string for the mac-address and arp
> farming, Read-Write in case you want to do port control, but that
> doesn't sound like you would.
>
> I've used http://www.agata.org.br/ in the past to directly query the
> PgSql database from netdisco, since I'm not a SQL person at all.
>
> HTH
> Charles
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 3:44 PM, Andrew <hen...@gm...> wrote:
> > Hi there,
> >
> > I have a few questions, which I have not been too successful in finding
> > answers for.
> >
> > 1. Is there a FAQ for NetDsico?
> >
> > 2. Considering I know almost zero about Linux/SQL, am I out of my depth
> > thinking this may be a feasible (and free:-) option for a
> > Desktop-Support-Guy (Me:-) to gather  Mac to Switch-Port  details? (I'm
> > attempting to map our Network devices, so I can tell where a Device is
> > Physically plugged in)
> >
> > 3. Would I need to know Passwords/Community-Strings (same difference?)
> for
> > the Switches NetDisco was going to interrogate?
> > - I have little/no access to interrogate Switches at present, I do have
> > -some- domain admin rights tho.
> >
> > 4. If NetDisco was set up on a system running Linux, how difficult would
> it
> > be to access it's SQL Database records from a Windows machine on the same
> > network?
> >
> > 5. The above in mind, would you have any alternative advice/suggestions
> on
> > where I should go, or what I should consider?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mogwai
> >
>