Read Me
NAME
Netdisco 1.3.1 - README
AUTHOR
Netdisco is maintained by a team of Open Source developers headed by
Eric Miller, Bill Fenner, Oliver Gorwits, Jeroen van Ingen and Max
Baker.
DESCRIPTION
Netdisco is an Open Source web-based network management tool.
Designed for moderate to large networks, configuration information and
connection data for network devices are retrieved and set by SNMP. With
Netdisco you can locate the switch port of an end-user system by IP or
MAC address. Data is stored using a SQL database for scalability and
speed.
Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), Foundry Discovery Protocol (FDP), Link
Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP), and SynOptics Network Management
Protocol (SONMP) optionally provide automatic discovery of the network
topology.
The network is inventoried by both device model and operating system
(like IOS). Netdisco uses router ARP tables and L2 switch MAC forwarding
tables to locate nodes on physical ports and track them by their IP
addresses.
For each node, a time stamped history of the ports it has visited and
the IP addresses it has used is maintained. Netdisco gets all its data,
including topology information, with SNMP polls and DNS queries. It does
not use CLI access and has no need for privilege passwords. Security
features include a wire-side Wireless Access Point (AP) locator.
Netdisco was created at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC),
Networking and Technology Services (NTS) department. UCSC continues to
support the development of Netdisco by providing development servers and
beer. The Netdisco project is hosted by Source Forge.
See <http://www.netdisco.org>
FEATURES
Switch Ports
From the web interface devices connected to switch and router ports are
listed by MAC address. A history of which switch ports a MAC address has
been seen at is kept. With a click the you can browse a network device
connected to an uplink port. With another click you can disable or
enable the switch port, logging the reason, user and date.
* Central location to disable/enable switch ports.
Network administrators can disable and enable ports without having
to know enable or privilege passwords. Reasons for switching on/off
ports are logged for end-of-the-year auditing and reporting. Non-IOS
savvy managers can control port access from a familiar browser
interface. This feature was designed with a University Residential
Networks (ResNet) in mind.
Only users you specify in Netdisco will have access to switch off a
port. Netdisco will also not allow people to switch off uplink ports
by accident.
* Supports Cisco VLAN Community String indexing ("public@101")
* MAC Address to switch port resolution
* IP Address to switch port resolution
* Find Switch Ports with multiple nodes attached
* Find nodes using multiple IP addresses
* Find nodes by vendor (using MAC address OUI)
Easy Administration
* Controllable through Web Interface or Command Line Interface (CLI)
* Database store for scalability and speed (Postgresql)
* Easily extendible to new network devices
* User system to restrict access and features
Network Administration and Security
* Automatic inventory and search of network hardware
* Administratively enable/disable switch ports from web interface with
logging
* Duplex Mismatch Finder
* Find Wireless Access Points (APs) from wired-side of network
* Layer Two Traceroute
Reporting
* Graphing of network topology. Clickable image-map of devices. Link
speed shown
* Statistics for number of actual nodes connected to network
Inventory of Network Devices
* by Operating System (IOS,CatOS,HP...)
* by Model, Vendor, OSI Layer, DNS Name
* Find device ports that are blocking (via Spanning Tree Protocol)
* Find devices using IP's w/out DNS entries
SUPPORTED DEVICES
Netdisco supports any Network device that talks SNMP and has basic
information available through MIB-II (RFC 1213). Additional
vendor-specific information is available for a number of devices, but
especially for Cisco, Extreme, Foundry, HP, and Nortel/Bay devices.
Device support is handled through "SNMP::Info" -- a Perl module that is
an integral part of Netdisco that handles device-specific code. See the
"Device Matrix" at <http://snmp-info.sourceforge.net> for a list of
devices that have been tested against Netdisco. SNMP::Info can be
extended for new families of devices relatively easily with a little
Perl knowledge.
SUPPORT
Please use the "netdisco-users" mailing list for all problems and
comments.
<http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/netdisco-users>
In case of bugs, please use the Bug interface from SourceForge page at:
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/netdisco>
GLOSSARY
Device
Any device connected to the network that contributes to the physical
topology. Devices need to be accessible via SNMP. A device usually
has multiple interfaces (ports) and can have multiple IP addresses.
Node
A node is anything connected to a device. Nodes are uniquely
identified by their MAC addresses. A node may or may not have IP
addresses associated with it.
Macsuck
Technical Answer : The process in Netdisco that goes out to all
Layer-2 devices and gets the Forwarding Tables / CAM Tables. Each
row in the table maps a MAC address to a switch port. This process
is what makes devices show up on switch ports.
Netdisco will attempt to detect uplink ports in case you are missing
topology data during macsuck. Check the logs of the macsuck /
macwalk for notifications of detected uplink ports, and add that
data to your netdisco-topology.txt.
Fun Answer - From Douglas M. McKeown :
"This is where you go to a switch (Layer 2) and find all the MAC (or
Ethernet Hardware) addresses which this device is connected to. So
you plug your Dell into your HP Switch and that HP Switch is
uplinked to your Core switch (not using the word router here. we're
talking simple, physical network connections, sort of like
electrical wires.) Well your Dell has a MAC address of let's say "A"
and amazingly, your HP switch has a MAC address of "B" and your Core
switch has an address of "1". Well if you Macsuck your Core switch,
it doesn't have your Dell connected to it, but it does have "B"
which is another switch. So you Macsuck "B" and it has MAC addresses
for 1, B and A! You don't really Macsuck an end device (your Dell).
So what do we know?
- Core (1) knows about HP Switch "B".
- HP Switch "B" knows about Core (1) and Dell "A".
- Dell "A" knows about HP Switch "B".
Does "1" know about "A" ? If it's a router it does. Otherwise it
asks who has "A" and switch "B" says, I know! So 1 goes to B which
goes to A.
Got it?"
Arpnip
The process in Netdisco that goes out to every Layer-3 device and
gets its ARP cache. Each entry in the ARP Cache maps a MAC address
to an IP address.
This process is what lets Netdisco map an Ethernet address to an IP
address. Combined with the Macsuck process, Netdisco can ultimately
resolve an IP address to a switch port.
If you have a small network that only has layer-2 devices on it, and
you use a Linux or BSD box as your router, you will need to install
net-snmp on the machine, and then have netdisco discover that
machine. Otherwise you will not be able to resolve a MAC address to
an IP address.
CDP / FDP / LLDP / SONMP
Having topology information is crucial for Netdisco to function. So.
if you network does not support one of the above Layer2 discover
protocols, you must put the information in the netdisco-topology.txt
file.
See "Topology Information" in this file.
From Douglas McKeown :
"CDP is the Cisco Discovery Protocol. Sort of an add-on for when
switches talk to switches about who's connected to whom. CDP quickly
tells other switches that it has switches connected. Netdisco really
likes CDP a lot for mapping out the network and automatically
discovering the topology. If your devices don't use CDP, then you
need to work with the netdisco-topology.txt file to create a layout
of your network."
Note that LLDP (IEEE Standard), FDP (Foundry), and SONMP
(Nortel/Bay) are supported, and anywhere you see CDP you can assume
we mean LLDP, FDP, and SONMP too.
Security Warning
WARNING! There is a potential community string exposure when
Netdisco is auto-discovering network equipment ("netdisco" -r).
If a malicious host were to implement CDP and Netdisco were to
discover that host, Netdisco would send all read-only community
strings to that device in an attempt to add it to the topology.
There are two main ways to avoid this exposure:
List addresses of valid devices
Use the discover_only and/or discover_no configuration
keywords to control what IP addresses netdisco will be
permitted to visit. "discover_only" is inclusive, and
"discover_no" is exclusive; it's recommended to use
"discover_only" if feasible.
When using this method, check the backend log for devices
visible via CDP but not via SNMP. These may point out the
need to expand the range that is discoverable, or may be
instances of this class of attack.
Additionaly "discover_no_type" can be used to prevent
netdisco from visiting certain devices based on the
device_type returned by CDP.
Disable CDP and other discovery protocols
This solution involves disabling CDP and other discovery
protocols from your user-connection ports, and leaving it on
on inter-device ports. Unfortunately, in some
configurations, user-connection ports are inter-device
ports, e.g., especially when you want to keep the ability to
easily add a phone to a port that didn't have one
previously.
Sample "IOS" Code for above:
interface range fastethernet1/1-32
no cdp enable
Make sure you don't disable CDP on any ports that are
connected to other pieces of infrastructure. Also make sure
you don't use the global command "no cdp run", since that
will disable CDP entirely.
INSTALL
See the INSTALL document for instructions and requirements to install
Netdisco.
USING NETDISCO
Components
Netdisco has three components :
1. Back-end
The back-end talks to devices via SNMP. Contained in the back-end is
the logic to create the topology, collect statistics and generate
graphs.
Most of the back-end is controlled by cron jobs.
A background daemon is put resident to run maintenance tasks
collected from the front-end. This keeps these sometimes memory
intensive tasks and code out of the httpd processes.
2. Database
Netdisco uses PostgreSQL to store all its information. Careful
abstraction of the database calls means that Netdisco can be ported
to another SQL platform easily. Hooks to use other databases are
present.
3. Front-end
The front-end operates on stored data only. This abstraction is both
for speed and security.
Some front-end administration tasks are put in a queue in the
database that a daemon running from the back-end picks up and
processes.
The number of people using Netdisco can scale with the web server
capacity, and will create no extra load on the devices.
Command-Line Options
-b || --batchmode
Batch Mode. Redirect output to log file. Log file directory set in
configuration file under datadir.
-C || --configfile file
Set Config file. Default is netdisco.conf.
-D || --debug
DEBUG. Sends copious information to STDOUT
-L || --nologging
No Log. This will not add entries to the log table.
-n || --nodestoo
Delete Nodes. Used with --expiredevice only.
-N || --newonly
New Only. On a network discovery -r, only discover found devices
that aren't in the database.
-P || --port port
Port. Specify Port for removal of nodes -e.
-S || --dumpsql
Debug. carp() SQL commands. Sets $netdisco::SQLCARP to 1.
-V || --archive
archiVe nodes. Used with -e only.
Command-Line Commands
-a || --arpwalk
Arp Walk. ArpNip each device that has Layer 3 capabilities.
-A || --arpnip device
ArpNip. ArpNip's a single device. See ArpNipper in Design.
Devices listed in "arpnip_no" in the config file are excluded. If
there is a "arpnip_only" entry in the config file, devices not
listed are excluded. See the entry below.
-B || --backup
Backup and Nightly Maintenance.
Removes
Devices and nodes that are old using the "expire_*" config file
directives (see below).
Creates
Archive data files for node,node_ip,device, and device_ip
tables.
Calls
Database cleanup routines (-K) as well.
Exports
NMIS config file if nmis_dump is set.
This routine should be run nightly.
For a full backup run sql/pg --back to backup the whole database.
-d || --discover device
Discover Device.
IP addresses and subnets listed in "discover_no" in the config file
are excluded. If there is a "discover_only" entry in the config
file, IP addresses and subnets not listed are excluded. See the
entry below.
-e || --expirenodes device
Expire Nodes for given device. Use -V to archiVe instead of delete.
Specify a port with -P to delete or archive nodes on a per port
basis.
--expire-nodes-subnet subnet
Finds all devices in given subnet and runs expire nodes on each.
Will display devices effected and then ask for confirmation.
Subnet is specified in CIDR format :
192.168.0.0/24
-E || --expiredevice device
Delete a device. Use -n to delete nodes as well.
-F || --discoverfile file
Discover Device from given File. Used to restore backed up info from
-B, and to discover devices that are not available through topology
information. Use -T to only import Topology Information.
-g || --graph
Graph. Creates graph using GraphViz. Can create image output
(png,gif) or vector output (svg).
NOTE: You can safely ignore all warnings about "size too small for
label".
Make sure you have a relatively new version of GraphViz. You need a
newer version of GraphViz if you get an error similar to:
Creating CMAP : /usr/local/netdisco/html/netmap.map
warning, language cmap not recognized, use one of: ps hpgl pcl mif...
-h || --help
Prints out command line usage.
-i || --changeip old_ip new_ip
Change IP address of device. Creates new entry, removes old one and
moves nodes over to the new one.
-I || --expireips
Expire IP Addresses from node_ip table. This will delete entries
from the node_ip table that are not matching entries (MAC Addresses)
found in the node or device_port tables.
-k || --cleanalias
alias klean-up. DANGEROUS. Deletes from the device table any IP
address that is found as an alias in the alias table.
-K || --cleannodes
Database Node Klean-up. Permanently deletes nodes matching:
1. MAC Addresses that are Switch Port Addresses
2. MAC Addresses that are listed on non-existent ports
3. MAC Addresses that exist on ports with topology information
(uplink ports)
-m || --macwalk
Mac Suck each device in the database that has Layer 2 capabilities.
-M || --macsuck device
Mac Suck given device only.
Devices listed in "macsuck_no" in the config file are excluded. If
there is a "macsuck_only" entry in the config file, devices not
listed are excluded. See the entry below.
-O || --oui
Import OUI information from oui.txt
-p || --daemon [start,stop,status,restart]
Control the Admin Daemon. Takes arguments
(start,stop,status,restart).
-r || --discoverall root_device_list
Walk the network with the given (comma-seperated) root(s). Use -N to
discover new devices only. Given root devices will always be
discovered.
-R || --refresh
Refresh devices. Will run a discover (-d) for each device in the
database.
-T || --topofile
Import Topology Data. Will import manual topology data stored in
file specified by configuration option topofile . Use -F to specify
a different file from the command line.
It is not necessary to do this after every change. This is only a
convenience switch.
-u || --user [user] [password] [port_control?] [admin?] ["full name"]
Add or Change a User. Supply all four arguments (user pw
port_control admin) for command-line control, or supply less for
interactive prompts.
It's better to use interactive prompts so that the password doesn't
get stored in your shell history file and exported to the process
table.
-v || --version
Features
Admin Daemon
The admin daemon is a copy of "netdisco" that runs in the
background. From the web "Admin Panel", jobs are put in a queue in
the database. The daemon picks up these jobs and executes them from
the back-end as user "netdisco". The daemon is restarted daily in a
cron job, or can be manually started as root :
su - netdisco -c "/usr/local/netdisco -p restart"
Port Info / Jack Search
This feature integrates Netdisco with other databases that have port
info.
Port Info was designed around data coming out of a Pinnacles
database at UCSC, and might prove to be site-specific. However, see
"port_info.html" for a good example of how to access other databases
using the "netdisco.pm" SQL routines.
Enable this feature by setting "port_info" to true in
"netdisco.conf"
Port Control
Port Control allows a user of Netdisco to administratively turn a
port on or off.
To do this the back-end requires a read-write community string for
the device in question. The admin daemon must also be enabled.
Netdisco keeps a log for each port holding information about why a
port was turned on or off.
A reason for turning switch the port is chosen from a list to
provide future audits of admin activity. The user and IP address of
the request are stored. To change the default reasons, modify the
%PORT_CONTROL_REASONS hash in "netdisco.pm"
Optionally if the "portctl_email" setting is set in "netdisco.conf",
an e-mail is sent out with a notification of the switching. Locally
at UCSC that e-mail is sent to an administrative mailing list.
To turn this feature off uncheck the "Port Control" checkbox from
all users in the "Admin Panel".
By default Netdisco will be allowed to shut off
- Switch Ports
- IP Phones
- Router Ports that are NOT uplinks
By setting certain config file directives you can allow Netdisco to
shutoff uplink ports and VLAN interfaces. But this is REALLY NOT
RECOMMENDED. See below for the required commands.
Web Console
The Web Console allows netdisco to front-end the web interface of a
switch or router. Traffic can then be routed over https, through
Netdisco's web server. An additional security layer is added by
requiring the user to be logged into Netdisco. The normal security
measures used by the device's web server are still active.
The Web console is a reverse proxy that runs on Apache. You must
enable it in "netdisco_apache.conf" and "netdisco_apache_dir.conf".
The add devices and models to the configuration lines
"web_console_vendors" and "web_console_models" in "netdisco.conf".
Netdisco Maintenance
Refreshing a device
To refresh or discover a device and its ports, use the -d command:
netdisco -d mydevice
Importing Topology Information
It is not necessary to import the topology information after
changing netdisco-topology.txt. You should however restart the admin
daemon. The topology text file is re-parsed each time you run
netdisco.
As a convenience you can use the topology file to quickly seed
Netdisco with devices. To import all the topology information at
once make sure the topology filename is set in "netdisco.conf" and
use the -T command:
netdisco -T
Aborting a process of Netdisco
Hit Ctrl-C if you are running a netdisco process, or send the job
the INT signal. The job can cleanup after itself, write out its
stats and log entries.
kill -INT jobpid
There is currently no way to stop a job inside the Admin daemon.
Send the daemon an INT signal and it will terminate after its
current job has completed.
Changing the IP Address of a Device
If a device is being replaced with a different device and a
different IP, see "Deleting a Device" below.
netdisco -i old-ip-address new-ip-address
Changing the IP address of a device will:
1. Discover the new device
2. Remove Old Device Entry, port, and aliases
3. Move the old nodes to the new device.
Auto-Deleting Old Data From the Database
In order for Netdisco to be self-maintaining data has to be taken
out of the database as well as put in. The following config file
directives are used to auto-prune stuff from the database :
expire_devices
expire_nodes
expire_nodes_archive
See each item's entry in the "Config File" Section below for more
details.
The expire data routines are called from the -B/Backup routine,
which should be running nightly via cron.
Deleting a Device
To delete a device use the -E command followed by the device name or
IP. Set -n to delete all the nodes seen on that device as well
This is rather permanent. Make sure you run -Backup before you do
this.
Deleting Nodes
Nodes consist of two components -- the switch port to MAC address
mapping in the "node" table, and the MAC address to IP mapping in
the "node_ip" table.
To remove nodes from a switch, use the Admin Panel on the web side
and choose either "Delete Nodes" or "Archive Nodes". Archiving nodes
will set the archive bit so that the data will be available, but not
always showing. You can also delete nodes from the command line
using the -e command with or without the -V flag.
Database Cleanup -K will delete nodes that seem to be extraneous.
See -K for more details.
Once you have cleared out nodes from a switch, then run -I to remove
unused node to IP mappings.
This is rather permanent. Make sure you run -Backup before you do
this.
Adding / Changing Users
The easiest way to add a user is to use the "Add User" form in the
Admin Panel. After first installing Netdisco you need to add an
admin user by running -u.
Migrating the Users table to a new host
If you are moving your Netdisco install over to another machine and
you want to keep your users table, here is the process :
source$ pg_dump -a -d -U netdisco -t users netdisco > user_dump.sql
source$ scp user_dump.sql dest:
dest$ cd /usr/local/netdisco/sql
dest$ ./pg /path/to/user_dump.sql
Localhost (127.0.0.1) is showing up on CDP Links
See "How the Switch Selects the IP Address To Include in Outbound
CDP Packets" in
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/networking/software/59692375_e1.pdf
Device Model comes up as 'Products.'
The device is probably newer than your Cisco MIBs. Redownload
<ftp://ftp.cisco.com/pub/mibs/v2/v2.tar.gz> and install these newest
mibs into /usr/local/share/snmp/mibs.
Things are getting Really slow
For some reason over here at UCSC, things get real slow in Postgres
after a while. Even though we are doing frequent VACUUM's on all the
data, it seems to be dragging down after a while.
This turns out to be an INDEX bloat problem on Postgres versions
less than 7.4. Recently doing this on a Postgres 7.3 install changed
the amount of space that Netdisco's database was using from 16G to
400M !!!
In order to fix this we do a "VACUUM FULL ANALYZE VERBOSE" and
"REINDEX" from "pg". This command locks each table before it does
the VACUUM, and therefore can be more thorough. It's a good idea to
take netdisco down temporarily while you do this. I do this about
once a month, or when I notice it dragging down. Use "Netdisco
Statistics" as a good metric of things slowing down. This may get
fixed with changes in VACUUM in Postgres 7.4 and above.
Procedure for doing a vacuum full (as root):
1. Shutdown the admin daemon
/usr/local/netdisco/bin/netdisco_daemon stop
2. Clear the cron tab for user netdisco
crontab -u netdisco -r
3. Comment out the netdisco config file Includes in httpd.conf
4. Restart Apache
/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl graceful
5. Check to see if any netdisco jobs are running and wait for them
or kill them
ps
killall netdisco
6. Run REINDEX and VACUUM FULL
Before:
df -h
/usr/local/netdisco/sql/pg
# before comparison :
select relname, relpages from pg_class order by relpages desc;
REINDEX TABLE node;
REINDEX TABLE node_ip;
REINDEX TABLE device;
REINDEX TABLE device_port;
REINDEX TABLE device_port_log;
VACUUM FULL ANALYZE VERBOSE;
# after comparison :
select relname, relpages from pg_class order by relpages desc;
\q
After:
df -h
7. Restart Postgres (just for fun)
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/010.pgsql restart
OR
/etc/rc.d/init.d/pgsql restart
OR
/etc/rc.d/pgsql restart
8. Uncomment lines in httpd.conf
9. Restart Apache
/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl graceful
10. Reload crontab for user netdisco
crontab -u netdisco /usr/local/netdisco/netdisco.crontab
11. Restart Admin Daemon
/usr/local/netdisco/bin/netdisco_daemon start
Clearing the Admin Queue
If your admin queue is just getting too long and you want to clear
it you can do it by just dropping the table and readding it.
cd sql
./pg admin.sql
Topology Information
Topology information is crucial to Netdisco's performance. It allows the
application to know which ports are uplink ports and which have
connected nodes. Ports that are uplink ports that are not marked so in
Netdisco will appear to steal MAC address entries from their rightful
ports. So it is critical to use the topology file and CDP/FDP/SONMP to
maintain a topology.
Autodetection of uplink ports
During macsuck if Netdisco finds the MAC address of a known device or
switch port, then that port is marked as an uplink. Nodes will not
collect at these switch ports, and a warning message will be printed.
Check the logs of your macsuck and macwalk jobs in order to find and
correct autodetected uplink ports. Add these ports to your
netdisco-topology.txt file.
Manual Topology Information
Netdisco will auto-discover the layer-two topology of a network using
CDP. However, many networks have parts of the topology that are not
covered by CDP.
Use the manual topology file "netdisco-topology.txt" to supply the
layout of the network if your network has devices that don't talk CDP or
misreport information.
The manual topology file only requires one side of the data to be
entered. Both directions of a link will be forced to the given data if
one side is listed.
File Format
The format of the manual topology consists of four types of lines:
#comment
Comments are delimited with a "#" They can happen on any line.
Escape as "\#" if you need to use a literal pound sign.
routername
Any line that does not start with "link:" or "alias:" is assumed to
be a the DNS name or IP address of a network device.
link:
Lines that start with "link:" connect two devices together. The
format is
link:outgoing port,destination device,Destination port
The outgoing port belongs to the device listed above the "link:"
line.
The Destination Device and Port tell Netdisco who is on the other
end of this link. The device can be a DNS name or an IP Address.
NOTE: The port names must match exactly how Netdisco sees it. Go to
the device and check it out. You might think of it as "port 1" but
Netdisco might think of it as "RMONPort26onunit1".
alias:
Not implemented for output. The backup file will have these lines
just for informations' sake. Alias IPs on a device are found during
discovery.
Many network devices like routers have multiple IP addresses
assigned to them. If the device cannot or does not supply this
information to Netdisco in a standard way, you can add IP addresses
used here.
White space in the file (except for line breaks) is ignored. Tabbing
over before "line:" lines makes it easier to read, but is not required.
File Uses
Some reasons the manual topology file is used:
1. Man in the Middle
Let's say you have two CDP speaking devices with a non-CDP speaking
device in between them
[Cisco] ---> [Bay] ---> [HP]
The Cisco and HP devices (CDP speakers) find each other and the Bay
device never appears. You would then have to add these lines to the
topology file:
ciscoswitch.my.company
link:EtherNet0/1,bayswitch.my.company,25
bayswitch.my.company
link:26,hpswitch.my.company,J3
This tells Netdisco that port "Ethernet0/1" on "ciscoswitch" is
connected to Port 25 on "bayswitch". Then in turn Port 26 on
"bayswitch" is connected to port "J3" on "hpswitch".
A note about devices that are *CDP Aware* and that implement CDP:
*CDP Aware* devices are devices that probably do not speak CDP
(probably for legal reasons) but that are smart enough not to
forward CDP packets. Cisco devices that have CDP disabled are
usually still *CDP Aware* and will not forward the packets.
Man-in-the-middle situations occur when the device both does not
speak CDP and is not *CDP Aware*.
2. Isolated Network Segment
If you have a segment of your network that is not connected
directly, or connected through a non physical link like a VPN, then
you might fudge an entry to connect that segment of the network with
the main one.
3. Attach a non-CDP speaking device
Anywhere a device that does not supply topology information is
connected to the network, an entry must be added in the manual
topology file.
Cron Jobs
Netdisco is controlled via cron jobs. Jobs are run as user "netdisco".
Multiple jobs can be run at once.
The default jobs are :
* MacSuck - Every 2 hours MacSuck all the devices in the database.
* ArpNip - Every 2 hours ArpNip all the devices in the database.
(Offset from Macsuck by 1 hours)
* Refresh Devices - Once a day refresh device information.
* Backup - Once a day backup information.
* Graph - Once a day re-create the graph.
* Walk Network - Once a week (Wed @ 14:00) try and discover new
devices.
* Restart Admin Daemon - Once a day just for good measure.
Config File
The settings in "netdisco.conf" are used both in the back-end and the
front-end.
When you make a change in the config file that is used in the web front
end, you must reload apache. The config information is shared between
processes for speed and memory performance.
su - -c "/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl restart"
Multiple config files can be used in the back-end by calling Netdisco
with the "-C" option:
netdisco -C myotherfile.conf
General Items
domain
STRING. Trimmed from all DNS names viewed. Leave blank to show all
domain names. Add a dot in front of your value :
.ucsc.edu
home
PATH. Full path to where netdisco lives. Is the root path for all
other files and paths.
customer
STRING. Name added to page titles and heading.
customericon
STRING. URL,width,height - replaces discoball icon with custom logo.
Database Maintenance
New in version 0.93 these directives are included to help make Netdisco
more self-maintaining.
Setting these will result in permanent data removal.
expire_devices
DAYS. Devices that have not been refreshed in this number of days
will be removed. All nodes connected to this device will be removed
as well.
expire_nodes
DAYS. Nodes that have not been refreshed in this number of days will
be removed from the database. Archived and non-archived nodes are
removed. This includes SwitchPort/MAC and MAC/IP mappings.
expire_nodes_archive
DAYS. Archived data for switch-port/MAC and MAC/IP mappings older
than this number of days will be removed.
Back-End Items
arpnip_min_age
SECONDS. Prevent a device from being arpnipped for this number of
seconds after the last succesful run.
arpnip_no
LIST:string. Devices that won't be arpnipped. See "bulkwalk_no" for
syntax. If you have any layer-3 devices that have been discovered by
netdisco but are using proxy-ARP as a way to get to other devices,
place them here. Alternately, if you have many proxy-ARP clients but
one (or a handful of) central device with all of the proper ARP
info, put that in "arpnip_only".
arpnip_only
LIST:string. If present, only arpnip these devices. See
"bulkwalk_no" for syntax.
compress
EXECUTABLE. Full path and command line arguments to the compression
program used in compresslogs
compresslogs
BOOLEAN. Compress log files? See compress entry above.
datadir
PATH. Full or relative path to the directory that backups and logs
will be stored in
discover_min_age
SECONDS. Prevent a device from being refreshed for this number of
seconds after the last succesful run.
discover_no
LIST:string. IP addresses in this list will not be visited during
discovery. See bulkwalk_no for syntax, except that only hostnames,
IP addresses and subnets are valid.
discover_no_type
REGEX:string. Place a pattern here to exclude the discovery of
certain devices based on the CDP device type information. Good for
excluding a whole device class like lightweight access points or IP
phones that have CDP but don't talk SNMP.
discover_only
LIST:string. If present, discovery will be limited to only IP
addresses in this list. If you have a management VLAN, put that
subnet here to avoid discovering user devices. See bulkwalk_no for
syntax, except that only hostnames, IP addresses and subnets are
valid.
ignore_interfaces
LIST:STRING If present, device ports matching any of the items in
this list will be ignored by the discovery process. Note this may
have side effects - connected devices and nodes on those ports will
in turn also not be discovered.
Each item in the list is separated by a comma and may be a Perl
regular expression. A useful example for this option might be:
EOBC,unrouted VLAN,StackPort,Control Plane Interface,SPAN (S|R)P Interface,StackSub
ignore_private_nets
Not fully implemented.
BOOLEAN. Set to true to ignore aliases that are part of private
nets:
10.0.0.0/8 172.16.0.0/16 and 192.168.0.0/24
logextension
STRING. The extension to add to log files.
macsuck_bleed
BOOLEAN. Set to true will let nodes accumulate on uplink ports
without topology information. This is a debug option to help you
figure out your topology and generally should not be set.
macsuck_min_age
SECONDS. Prevent a device from being macsucked for this number of
seconds after the last succesful run.
macsuck_no
LIST:string. Don't macsuck these devices. See "bulkwalk_no" for
syntax.
macsuck_only
LIST:string. If present, only macsuck these devices. See
"bulkwalk_no" for syntax.
macsuck_no_vlan
LIST:Strings. Comma separated list of VLAN names not to visit when
MACsucking.
This option was used to speed up MACsucking on certain Cisco
Catalyst family devices where you have to connect to each VLAN with
SNMP to get the forwarding tables. Certain default VLANs will not
answer to SNMP, and Netdisco has to wait for them to timeout.
VLANs listed here are overrided regardless of macsuck_all_vlans
value.
macsuck_no_devicevlan
LIST:Strings. Comma separated list of "hostname:VLAN" combinations
to ignore when MACsucking.
This option is similar to macsuck_no_vlan, but only skips MACsucking
for the given VLAN on the given device.
VLANs listed here are overrided regardless of macsuck_all_vlans
value.
macsuck_timeout
SECONDS. Timeout for devices when mac sucking.
macsuck_all_vlans
BOOLEAN. Set to macsuck all VLANs, not just the ones that are being
used on ports.
This is a debug option. Set this if you think that the option of not
macsucking VLANs that aren't in use on device ports is some how
interfering.
Setting this would revert macsuck to the same behavior as 0.93 and
before.
Does not override macsuck_no_vlan.
macsuck_no_unnamed
BOOLEAN. Set to true to skip MACsuck-ing on VLANs which have no name
set.
This option may be useful on Cisco Catalyst family devices where
ports are a member of a VLAN which is not defined in the VLAN
database.
max_procs
INTEGER. The number of simultaneous processes to use when collecting
data from devices. Using several processes speeds up data
collection, but uses more database resources. Be careful of using up
all of your database connection handles. Typical values are 15-25.
Note that the load average will be quite high with this option, very
nearly the same as the value of max_procs. However, that's because
each of these processes spends much of its time waiting for
responses from the device, so is ready to run. The high load average
doesn't affect the usability of the system in the same way that a
high load average caused by cpu-bound jobs would.
nbt_days
DAYS. The maximum age of a node for it to be checked for NetBIOS
information. Default 7.
nmis_dump
FILENAME. Set this option to have nightly() (-B) dump an NMIS
<http://www.sins.com.au/nmis> style Config file. Warning, this file
will contain SNMP Community strings.
Optional Override options are :
nmis_group
STRING. Group to use with nmis_dump. Default "Network"
nmis_role
STRING. Role to use with nmis_dump. Default "core"
nmis_collect
STRING. Collect option to use with nmis_dump. Default "true"
nmis_active
STRING. Active option for nmis_dump file. Default "true"
nmis_net
STRING. Net identifier to use. Default "lan"
nmis_port
INT. SNMP Port to list in nmis_dump file. Default 161
node_monitor_email
STRING. If set, consult the node_monitor table for MAC addresses
that are being monitored after every macwalk. If any of the
monitored MAC addresses appear or move, send an email to the
node_monitor_email setting and any cc address listed in the
database. Note that the node_monitor table must currently be
maintained via raw sql access, there is no admin page for it.
reverse_sysname
BOOLEAN. Turn this on to have Netdisco do a reverse lookup of the
sysName.0 field to use as the management IP address for a device.
See bug 810939 and device_root() for more info. Default "false"
store_modules
BOOLEAN. Set to false to skip the module inventory on device
discovery. The module inventory can double the device discovery time
so if you aren't using the information you can skip it.
store_wireless_clients
BOOLEAN. Set to false to skip the wireless client information
gathering. This is captured at macsuck time, so if you aren't using
the information you can skip it.
topofile
FILE. Full path of the file that contains manual topology
information. Defaults to netdisco-topology.txt
timeout
SECONDS. Timeout for refreshing or discovering a device
Admin Panel
daemon_bg
BOOLEAN. Run daemon in the background?
daemon_pid
FILE. Filename for the pid file used by admin daemon. Must be
writable by daemon user.
daemon_poll
SECONDS. Time to wait to check for new items in the queue.
Database Settings
The five database settings are "db" , "db_user", "db_pw", "db_opts", and
"db_env".
You can run multiple database types in Netdisco. See "port_info" for an
instance of this.
For each of the above settings, the database shortcut name (you choose)
is inserted after "db".
Postgres is the required first database, and uses the short name "Pg".
The following lines must be added :
db_Pg
STRING. Database connect string to give to DBI.
Default : "dbi:Pg:dbname=netdisco"
db_Pg_user
STRING. Database user
db_Pg_pw
STRING. Database Password
db_Pg_opts
HASH. Options to add to the connect string.
Default : "PrintError => 1, AutoCommit => 1"
db_Pg_env
HASH. Environment variables to be set before running database calls.
Separate multiple entries with commas.
Mainly used for Oracle.
Default : not set.
Example :
db_Oracle_env = ORACLE_HOME => /usr/local/oracle7, ORACLE_STUFF=>1
SNMP Settings
bulkwalk_off
BOOLEAN. Set to true to use GETNEXT instead of BULKWALK for every
device. This slows things down, but might be necessary for problem
devices.
Set to false to use BULKWALK even if netdisco thinks you have a
buggy version of Net-SNMP (e.g., because your installation is
patched)
Other solutions include addding " sub bulkwalk_off { 1; } " to the
device class that is misbehaving in SNMP::Info. This will turn off
bulkwalk for a class of devices, not all.
Also see bulkwalk_no to turn BULKWALK off on a per-device or device
class level.
Default is on. SNMP::Info 1.0 or higher required.
bulkwalk_no
LIST:STRING. A comma separated list of devices to not bulkwalk
This list can take five different inputs:
Hostname or IP
Simply put the device's name or IP address in the list.
switch1, switch2, switch3
model:regex
Add an entire model type for excluding from bulkwalking.
This can be a simple string like 6500 or it could be a regular
expression like "(2512|65\d\d)". The regex must match the whole
string (it's anchored).
vendor:regex
Add an entire vendor type for excluding form bulkwalking.
This can be a simple string like "hp" or it could be a regular
expression like "(cisco|hp)". The regex must match the whole
string (it's anchored).
Subnet
You can exclude a whole subnet of devices from bulkwalking. Use
CIDR notation.
128.1.0.0/16
Blanket Wildcard
You can use a single asterix "*" to specify that all devices not
be bulkwalked.
bulkwalk_repeaters
INT. Sets MaxRepeaters on BULKWALK operations. See "perldoc SNMP"
for more info.
Default is 20. SNMP::Info 1.0 or higher required.
community
LIST:STRING. A comma separated list of community strings to try on
each device.
community_rw
LIST:STRING. OPTIONAL. A comma separated list of Read-Write
community strings.
This is only necessary if you turn on the "port_control" command.
get_community
STRING. An external program to run to get the community string for a
given device. This is useful if, for example, you have you devices
already configured in another NMS and you want to use that
information instead of configuring "community" and/or "community_rw"
in this file.
The strings %IP% and %HOST% are replaced by the IP address and the
hostname (or IP address if no hostname is known) of the system being
contacted.
The command must return output in the following form:
community=<list of readonly-communities>
setCommunity=<list of write-communities>
If the community string is not known for the given system, the
command should return no output and the community strings configured
in netdisco will be used.
mibdirs
LIST:STRING. A comma separated list of directories to search for MIB
files.
nonincreasing
BOOLEAN. Setting this to true will allow the bulkwalk of devices
that have tables with non-increasing OIDs. The default is to not
allow this behavior to prevent problem devices from looping
indefinitely. Requires Net-SNMP 5.3 or higher.
See patch # 1364650 in Net-SNMP or bug # 1176130.
snmpforce_v1
LIST:STRING. A comma separated list of devices. Forces matching
devices to use SNMPv1
See bulkwalk_no for syntax.
snmpforce_v2
LIST:STRING. A comma separated list of devices. Forces matching
devices to use SNMPv2c
See bulkwalk_no for syntax.
snmpforce_v3
LIST:STRING. A comma separated list of devices. Forces matching
devices to use SNMPv3.
See bulkwalk_no for syntax.
snmpver
INT. Default version of SNMP protocol to connect with.
snmptimeout
INT. Settings for 'Timeout' field passed to SNMP::Session.
Micro-seconds before retry, Default 1000000 micro-seconds = 1
second.
snmpretries
INT. Settings for 'Retries' field passed to SNMP::Session
v3_users
LIST. The users to try for SNMPv3 (like community for SNMPv1/SNMPv2)
v3_users_rw
LIST. The users to try for SNMPv3 read-write access.
v3_user STRING. Colon seperated values:
user:auth/enc[:authproto:authpass[:privproto:privpass]]
user is the SNMPv3 username, as listed in v3_users or v3_users_rw.
auth/enc specifies what levels of authorization/privacy you are
configuring. The possible values are:
none
only use noAuthNoPriv, the user has no authorization or privacy
configured.
auth
Use authNoPriv - authorization but no privacy.
enc Use authPriv - authorization and privacy for all requests.
auth,enc
Use authNoPriv for read and authPriv for write.
authproto is the authorization protocol, and can be any that the
underlying library supports, e.g., SHA or MD5.
authpass is the authorization pass phrase.
privproto is the privacy proto, e.g., DES or AES.
privpass is the privacy pass phrase.
No support is currently provided for providing hexadecimal keys
directly. Such support might use the prefix "0x" to identify a hex
key, so be careful how you choose your pass phrases.
Port Control
portctl_email
EMAIL. Address that reports of use of "Port Control" are sent to.
portctl_nophones
BOOLEAN. Set to True to make sure an IP Phone port never can be
turned off/on. Default false.
portctl_timeout
SECONDS. Amount of time to wait for a response from the admin
daemon.
portctl_uplinks
BOOLEAN. Set to True to allow Netdisco to be able to disable
Uplinks. (Router Interfaces too)
Default False.
EXTREMELY VERY DANGEROUS - Turning off uplinks will take out chunks
of your network.
portctl_vlans
BOOLEAN. Set to True to allow Netdisco to be able to disable VLAN
interfaces.
Default False.
EXTREMELY VERY DANGEROUS - Turning off a VLAN could take out most of
your network.
vlanctl
BOOLEAN. Set to True to allow Netdisco to be able to change the
default VLAN on an interface.
Web Settings
port_info
BOOLEAN. Turns on the "Port Info" and "Jack Search" features.
secure_server
BOOLEAN. If a secure server is present.
Requires web login, password changing and all admin functions to be
run in secure space.
traceroute
BOOLEAN. If the traceroute button should be present in the top bar.
The L2 Traceroute function has limits and may be slow on large
networks, so the link to it can be disabled.
web_console_models
LIST:STRING. Comma separated list of models that want to use the Web
Console
web_console_vendors
LIST:STRING. Comma separated list of vendors that use the Web
Console.
webpath
PATH. URL Path added to the beginning of links on the web front-end
websession
MINUTES. Amount of time a session lasts before someone has to login
again.
apache_auth
BOOLEAN. Whether to use Apache-based authentication. If this is
configured both here and in netdisco_apache_dir.conf, then logins
will trust the REMOTE_USER set by Apache. If the user is found in
the user database, then the appropriate privileges are applied; if
the user is not found then they have access but no port control or
admin access. There is another link on the sidebar, "Netdisco Login"
to log in using the netdisco user database.
LDAP Settings
ldap_server
LIST:STRING. Comma separated list of LDAP servers. If using Active
Directory these would be domain controllers.
ldap_user_string
STRING. String to construct the user portion of the DN. %USER% is a
variable which will be replaced at runtime with the logon name
entered on the logon page of the application. Examples: cn=%USER%,
uid=%USER%. Active Directory users may use DOMAIN\%USER% and skip
all other options except ldap_server as this notation eliminates the
need to construct the full distinguished name.
ldap_base
STRING. String which indicates where in the hierarchy to begin
searches. If a proxy user is not defined and anonymous binds are not
enabled this value will be appended to the ldap_user_string to
construct the distinguished name for authentication.
ldap_proxy_user
STRING. User to bind with to perform searches. If defined as
anonymous, then anonymous binds will be performed and
ldap_proxy_pass will be ignored. For organizations with users in
multiple OU's this option can be used to search for the user and
construct the DN based upon the result.
ldap_proxy_pass
STRING. Proxy user password. Ignored if proxy user defined as
anonymous.
ldap_opts
HASH. Options to add to the connect string. Normally only needed if
server does not support LDAPv3.
ldap_tls_opts
HASH. If defined, the connection will use Transport Layer Security
(TLS) which provides an encrypted connection. TLS is the preferred
method of encryption, ldaps (port 636) is not supported. This is
only possible if using LDAPv3 and the server supports it. These are
the options for the TLS connection. See the Net::LDAP documentation
under start_tls for options, but the defaults should work in most
cases.
Example configuration to use Microsoft Active Directory
ldap_server = AD-Domain-Controller1,AD-Domain-Controller2
ldap_user_string = DOMAIN\%USER%
Note: Only one domain is currently supported in this configuration
Example configuration to use Novell E-Directory
ldap_server = LDAP-Server-1,LDAP-Server-2
ldap_user_string = cn=%USER%
ldap_base = o=MYORGANIZATION
ldap_proxy_user = anonymous
Note: This configuration will support users split across multiple
containers as long as the containers exist below MYORGANIZATION
Graph Settings
edge_color
STRING. Default color for link between devices.
graph
FILE. Full path and name to the GIF graph of the network. Path
should be the same as in the "netmap.html" component.
graph_bg
STRING. Background color for the graph.
graph_color
STRING. Text color for the graph
graph_default
STRING. Default type of graph to view in NetMap (svg,gif,png).
Optional, defaults to "svg".
graph_epsilon
INT. Sets the "epsilon" attribute in "GraphViz" used to control the
graph solver. Set to an integer value. This will improve the mapping
and visual quality of them graph. Each integer step can mean an
exponential time increase in the solving of the graph.
graph_clusters
BOOLEAN. Creates clusters of nodes based on their location field.
Best with graph_layout "fdp". Only use if all or most devices in a
given location have the same location string.
graph_layout
STRING. Choose program to render graph with. Valid options are
"neato", "twopi", "circo" and "fdp".
graph_fontpath
STRING. Path for graphviz to find font files to be used for
node_font. Defaults to home.
graph_map
FILE. Set to Full path and name to the ISMAP data for the network.
Path should be the same as in the "netmap.html" component.
graph_nodesep
FLOAT. Node Separation (in inches) of nodes in graph.
graph_overlap
BOOLEAN. Parameter passed to "GraphViz" for the "overlap="""
feature.
graph_png
FILE. Full path and name to the PNG graph of the network. Path
should be the same as in the "netmap.html" component. Use this if
you prefer not to use GIF, or if your graphviz binary doesn't
support GIF, reporting an error similar to "Renderer type: "gif" not
recognized. Use one of: [...png...]".
graph_ranksep
FLOAT. Rank Separation of elements in graph.
graph_ratio
FLOAT or STRING. Graph's aspect ratio, may be a floating point
number, or one of the keywords fill, compress, or auto.
graph_raw
FILE. Set to create the raw (.dot) graph file as well.
graph_splines
BOOLEAN. Turn on GraphViz's spline engine? (Is very processor
intensive).
graph_svg
FILE. Set to create an SVG version of the graph. Requires GraphViz
0.8 or greater.
graph_timeout
MINUTES. Time to allow "neato" to try and solve the graph. Default
60min.
graph_x, graph_y
FLOAT. The X and Y dimensions of the graph in inches. To convert to
pixels, times by 100 (96 actually). So the default values of 30x30
will give you a graph that is about 3000x3000 pixels wide.
node_fillcolor
STRING. Default background color for device
node_fixedsize
BOOLEAN. True keeps the box size small and fixed (for huge graphs);
false allows the box to be sized to fit the text inside. Default
TRUE.
node_font
FILE. Name of the True Type Font used for label of node. Exclude
.ttf in name.
node_fontcolor
STRING. Color of text
node_fontsize
FLOAT. Size of text in Pixels. Note that for the graph_overlap=scale
option, the font gets scaled down and so an oversized font is used.
node_map
STRING. Colon separated list of values. Multiple node_map entries
can exist. Entry is in format:
Variable:Regular Expression:Attribute:Value:Key String:Key Title
Variables that you can use include : label,ip
Attributes can be any node attribute usable in GraphViz, such as
fillcolor and color
Examples:
label:cat(?!-g):fillcolor:blue:cat:Blue Box - Catalyst Switch
If the label (dns name) matches cat, but not cat-g, make it blue,
with an entry in the key like "[cat] Blue Box - Catalyst Switch"
ip:^169\.233:color:yellow:node:Yellow Border - ResNet
If the IP address of the device starts with 169.233, then make the
border around the device yellow, with an entry in the key like
"[node] Yellow Border - ResNet".
You may leave off Key String and Key Title to get no entry in the
key for this color combination. This can be useful to get only one
key entry when using multiple node_map entries with the same
attribute/value.
node_problem
STRING. Color to use for devices that are not accessible
node_shape
STRING. Default shape for device, normally box.
node_style
STRING. Default style of device, normally filled.
root_device
STRING. IP address of a device to be used as the "center" of the
graph.
Device View preferences
col_xxx_show
BOOLEAN. Customize which columns are shown by default in de Device
View page. The "xxx" part indicates the (internal) column name.
Valid options are: "port", "descr", "type", "duplex", "lastchange",
"name", "speed", "mac", "mtu", "vlan", "vmember", "connected",
"stp", "up", "control", "graphs", "poe_admin", "poe_status",
"poe_class" and "poe_power".
Examples:
col_lastchange_show = 1 # Show the Last Change column by default
col_vmember_show = 0 # Hide the VLAN Membership column by default
col_graphs_show = 1 # Show the Graphs column by default
(note: Netdisco doesn't offer port graphs by itself, but the Graphs column
can be used to link against external graphing tools)
col_graphs_data
FILE. Should resolve to a Mason component which provides output for
the Graphs column. An example component named "col_graphs" is
included in html/graphs_sample.mas.
Example: col_graphs_data = graphs_sample.mas:col_graphs
Linking Netdisco against external graphing tools requires a small
amount of programming. This is not in the scope of this manual.
DESIGN
Design Goals
* Use of SNMP Leaf Names only; No OIDs
* Easily extendible to new devices. No device-specific hacks in logic
* Modular back-end database front-end setup
* Security. Front-end abstraction from device manipulation means
sensitive network devices are not exposed to a web interface .
* Data Archiving. Data structures and backup routines to provide
online and offline storage of network structure and usage.
* Highly Configurable. Extract out all possible options to
netdisco.conf and avoid site-specific code.
* Administration available on both command line and web interfaces.
Back-End Components
netdisco.pm
Perl Module that holds all the SQL interaction routines as well as
some helper routines. Used by both the back-end and front-end.
SNMP::Info
Perl Modules created for this project that are used to provide the
interaction between the device and Netdisco over SNMP. All
device-specific changes are done in these modules.
Network Walker
Using a device as a starting point (root), the walker then tries to
visit every device directly connected to the starting point.
Neighboring devices are found with CDP.
ArpNipper
The ArpNipper is visits each discovered device with Layer 3
capabilities. Each device's ARP Cache is read and the IP address to
MAC address translation is stored in the node_ip table.
The original ArpNipper was written by Jim Warner at UCSC.
MacSucker
The MacSucker visits each device with Layer 2 capabilities. Each
device's Forwarding Table is read. MAC addresses that are on ports
without a physical mapping (virtual ports) are skipped. MAC
Addresses on ports with a neighbor recorded are skipped (uplink
ports). MAC Addresses that are actually switch ports are skipped.
The remaining MAC addresses are recorded as nodes in the nodes
table.
If the device supports the v_name() call, and has VLANs, then the
MacSucker tries to connect to each VLAN and macksuck() each VLAN.
This is required for some devices like the Cisco Catalyst 5000,
3500, 1900, 6500 series.
A few speedups are implemented for the devices that require each
VLAN to visited:
macsuck_no_vlan
This config file directive lists VLANs that exist in every
device by default but do not ever have MAC addresses attached to
them.
macsuck_no
Use this config file directive to exclude problem devices.
Macsuck only happens on VLANS listed under ports
(New 0.94) Many VLANs may be on the device or in the vtpdomain,
but only a few of them may be in use on device_ports. Macsuck
will not try to visit the VLANs that are not in use on device
ports. See macsuck_all_vlans to override this.
The original MacSucker was written by Mark Boolootian at UCSC.
Helper Routines
The 40+ routines for creating backups, logging, etc.
Browse the source code or check out netdisco-api for more info.
Database
Netdisco uses PostgreSQL as its database store. Indexing is used heavily
to speed up queries and facilitate large data sets. See the "sql/"
directory and INSTALL for more information.
SQL Tables
admin
Queue for admin control panel tasks to be sent back and forth from
the front-end.
device
Holds device information. Each device is identified by unique IP
Address.
device_ip
Holds alias IP Addresses for devices. Each device can have multiple
IP's stored in this table. The master IP address is either taken
from SNMP information or from the reverse DNS entry of the device
name. Also used to link a certain alias to a port.
device_port
Holds the interface (port) information for each device. One row for
each interface exists with information about the port status.
device_port_power
Holds PoE-related information for interfaces (ports) on each device
capable of acting as Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE). One row for
each power-capable interface exists with information about the PoE
status.
device_port_log
Contains log entries for port_control, tool used for
administratively enabling and disabling ports.
device_port_ssid
Holds SSID information for wireless access points.
device_port_wireless
Holds channel and power information for wireless access points.
log Holds log entries for human use.
node
Holds an entry for each MAC address connected to the network that
isn't a device. Tells on which switch port the node was seen, and
when it was seen there. Also holds the archived data on node
location. Archived data has the column ''active'' set to false. Data
comes from MacSucker
node_ip
Maps a MAC Address to an IP address. Has no notion of where this
node was seen. Keeps time stamps of when this is from. Data comes
from ArpNipper. Archived data is similar to the node table, where
``active'' is set to false for archived data.
node_monitor
Lists MAC addresses that are to be monitored for presence on the
network; if one appears or moves at the end of a macwalk, send email
to node_monitor_email and the CC field in the node_monitor_table, if
set.
node_nbt
Maps a MAC address to an IP address and its NetBIOS information,
including NBT name, domain, and user. Archived data is similar to
the node table, where ``active'' is set to false for archived data.
node_wireless
Holds information about the a wireless station's radio -- maximum
possible rate, current transmit rate, signal strength and quality,
and rx/tx packets and bytes. This table has no archived data; it
only contains the most recent sample for a given MAC address.
process
This table is used to coordinate the work of multiple child
processes when performing parallel work.
sessions
Web sessions created by MasonX::Request::WithApacheSessions. Stores
information about a current session in the global $m->session hash
under mason.
oui Populated with data from oui.txt Oui.txt contains the
Organizationally Unique Identifiers (OUI) that map a MAC address to
a vendor. The database is controlled by the IEEE. See INSTALL for
more information.
users
User information for web front end.
THANKS
I would like to thank the following people for their contributions to
Netdisco :
Mark Boolootian and Jim Warner (Through who's ideas Netdisco was born
and shaped) (UCSC) , Mike Hunter (UCB), Brian Wilson (NCSU), Bradley
Baetz (bbaetz), David Temkin (sig.com), Edson Manners (FSU), Dmitry
Sergienko (Trifle Co, .ua), Remo Rickli (PSI, Switzerland),
Jean-Philippe Luiggi (sagem.com), A.L.M Buxey (Loughborough University,
UK), Kevin Cheek (UMICH), John Bigrow (bnl.gov), George Pavel
(llnl.gov), Charles Goldsmith (wokka.org), Douglas M. McKeown
(saintmarys.edu), Revital Shvarzman (York U, Ontario), Walter Gould
(Auburn U), Lindsay Druet and Colin Palmer (U of Waikato, Hamilton NZ),
Dusty Hall (Auburn U), Jon Monroe (center pointe), Eric Miller
(jeneric), Bill Fenner, Oliver Gorwits (Oxford U), Alexander Barthel
(http://archiv.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/2005/0045/), Bill Anderson, Carlos
Vicente (U Oregon), Alexander Hartmaier (t-systems.at), Justin Hunter
(Arizona State U), Jethro Binks (U of Strathclyde, Glasgow), Jordi
Guijarro (UAB.es), Sam Stickland (spacething.org), Stefan Radman
(CTBTO.org), Clint Wise, Max Kosmach, Bernhard Augenstein.
And probably lots of other people I forgot to put in here. Not to
mention the authors and communities of all the other software that
Netdisco is built upon.