We all know how hard it is sometimes to find one single MAC address in the big network..
You have to look through the forwarding tables of many switches.
Nectus makes it easy. We scan forwarding tables from all the switches as part of regular Discovery jobs and save all MAC addresses and
corresponding Switch ports to a database. So you can find your MAC address in seconds.
Go to “Inventory-> MAC Addresses” for a complete MAC Address list
Some of the users complained about gloomy Nectus color scheme.
The reason for dork color scheme is lesser strain on eyes during long troubleshooting sessions but for those
who still wants to enjoy more contemporary colors we added ability to switch between dark and light colors scheme
for Go to “Settings -> Miscellaneous Settings” and switch between “Night” and “Day” schemes.
If you want to prevent specific device from sending messages to Syslog, you can add its IP address
to Syslog Sender Blacklist. All messages from that IP address will be discarded.
If you want to prevent specific Syslog messages from being added to Syslog Database,
you can add a specific keyword to a Syslog blacklist and all syslog messages that contain this keyword will be discarded.
This does not have retroactive effect on messages that are already in DB.
This is an example on how to obtain list of IP addresses assigned to Interfaces inside specific SNMP Context on Nexus 7000
Step 1.
Obtain list of all SNMP Contexts by sending SNMP GET Bulk for cContextMappingVrfName (.1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.468.1.1.1.2)
Response:
‘1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.468.1.1.1.2.10.109.97.110.97.103.101.109.101.110.116’=>”management”
In this response Nexus 7018 Switch has only one SNMP context with a name “management”
Step 2.
Obtain list of all IP addressses that exist in context “management” by sending SNMP GET Bulk for ipAdEntIfIndex (.1.3.6.1.2.1.4.20.1.2)
Note that for this step step we have append context name to V2 community string
(e.g public@management) to specify that this request is specific for context “management”.
Response:
‘1.3.6.1.2.1.4.20.1.2.10.255.27.34’=>”83886080″
In this response we have IP address [10.255.27.34] and associated interface ifIndex “83886080”
Step 3.
Find interface name with ifIndex 83886080 by sending SNMP GET Bulk for (.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2)
Response:
‘1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.83886080’ => “mgmt0”
So in these 3 steps we have found that Interface Mgmt0 has assigned an ip address 10.255.27.34
Following ports needs to be opened for inbound access to Nectus GUI via Firewall
HTTPS: TCP 443
WebSockets: TCP 8000, 8100
Very often our customers has to live trough the M&A process where merging networks are configured with different SNMP parameters.
It can be just different SNMP v2 community strings of different flavors of ciphers in SNMP v3.
To support multiple SNMP settings within the single management domain Nectus implements a concept of SNMP profiles.
User can define up to 10 different SNMP profiles and Nectus Discovery will try them all in predefined order.
For each live IP address Nectus discovery will try each of the profiles until match is found.
Once correct profile is found it gets associated with specific device or IP address and all further SNMP communications
for this specific device will be done with its “good” SNMP profile.
To configure SNMP profiles “Settings -> Network Discovery Settings -> SNMP Profiles”
You can share graphs generated in Nectus with other people by providing graphs’ direct URLs from the right upper cortner
To reassign device to a different site right click on the device name and select “Move Device to..” option in context menu
To start a web-based SSH session to any device right-click on device and select “Open SSH Session” in context menu
(session will originate from Nectus server IP)
To create a new command script open “Tools->Command Scripts” in main menu and select “Add New Script” Button.
Here is an example of the Script for Cisco router to push AAA config change.
To push the command script to devices, Press “Play” button, Select target Device View and press “Run”
Starting from Nectus version 1.2.6 Ping plotter functionality was added to a Toolset located in “Tools” main menu.
Specify up to 10 IP address and track latency and availability in real time. Export metrics to a CSV file with 1 second resolution.
All network devices that responds to SNMP queries are being placed in “All SNMP Devices” category,
furthermore Nectus tries to obtain list of all CDP neighbors from SNMP enabled devices and tries to communicate
to all CDP neighbors via SNMP. If CDP neighbor does not answer to SNMP queries is is being placed in “ALL CDP Devices”
category. So devices in “ALL CDP devices” category support CDP but don’t support (or answer) to SNMP queries.
Some of the devices that are normally seen in “ALL CDP devices” category: IP Phones, LWAP Access Points.
All devices with misconfigured or disabled SNMP will appear there as well.
When SNMP enabled device is discovered for the first time it is placed in default group “Unassigned” in “All Sites” category.
User must manually move devices from “Unassigned” group to specific site where each device belongs to.
Initially each Site has to be manually defined. To create a Site right click on “All Sites” and select “Create New Site Level” in context menu
Define Site name, GPS coordinates and Address
If your devices share common hostname format with site specific prefix you can automate the placement of devices into each site
by defining a hostname prefix for this site. This will ensure that all devices with the same prefix will be placed into this Site.
Nectus comes with hundreds of standard device icons but sometimes user may want
to change default icon for specific device type to something different.
Supported icon format is SVG with width=”168px” height=”114px.
To change device icon, right click on Device Category and select “Properties”
Select “Upload SVG icon from Local Disk
Starting from version 1.28 Nectus supports processing of inbound Netflow packets.
To enable Netflow functionality separate standalone Server or VM is required for Storage.
64 bit MySQL Server has to be installed on Netflow storage VM and DB Name, Root credentials and TCP port
for Netflow Storage DB has to be configured on main Nectus Server under “Settings -> General Settings -> Netflow Integration”
Netflow Collector can support up to 30,000 flow per second.
Netflow collector functionality added to Nectus starting from version 1.2.8
In addition to monitoring SNMP enabled devices located inside of your network Nectus can be configured to monitor
ICMP reachibility of any external IP address by adding it to a list of “IP Monitors”
First you need to define IP Monitor Group name where IP address will be added to:
Make sure that “Monitoring” flag is selected. Unchecking this flag stops monitoring if this Group.
and second add actual IP address to the IP Monitor Group and assign it a name.
Each IP monitor has a context menu with different reports such as Latency, Lost Pings, UP/DOWN Status etc..
For each router or switch found during discovery Nectus has to select one interface that will be used as a primary monitoring
interface for basic reachibility checks, destination for SNMP queries etc..
Here is the selection order logic that implemented in Nectus Discovery Service:
To exclude specific subnet from Network Discovery add it to “Excluded subnets” list in “Settings -> Network Discovery Settings”
This will exclude this subnets from ICMP scan phase and subsequently prevent live devices in this subnets from being
queried via SNMP.