Node mac address and connected interface

[etiennef]

Good day everyone

This is my first post here, but I have been reading the forums a lot!

I am very new to NEDI but not new to network hardware and operation.

Firstly, I need to say that this is an incredible tool.
Following my first demo of what this can do, the client immediate indicated that they are willing to buy the tool for the benefit of having the newer version.

To this end I am trying to get the last bit to work correctly before my next demo.

The problem/shortfall is as follows:
I have a working NEDI installation that does network discovery perfectly.
The topology and neighbour devices on the network work extremely well.
We have NEC IP Phones.
It accurately populates the phone on the interfaces. When looking at the switch in the connection area the phone is displayed, and the correct MAC address is shown next to the device type
Example: NECS DT800, 0060b995ed04

The operational problem occurs when trying to find this phone from the nodes side by searching for the MAC address.
These mac addresses are shown on any of the switches, from the core to the device. It could be because the phone and PC are connected to one interface as the mac address specific to the interface is shown as the PC’s mac address
Example from one switch interface:
11   LLDP:NECS DT800       626    0018fe445bf5
11   NECS DT800, 0060b9a5fd59  100M   LLDP

My questions:
1.   Please assist with discovery command line options to run in more regular intervals. Suggestions welcome. I need to discover connected devices(nodes) more frequently up to interface to MAC level. Modules and switch/network neighbours not so often. The graphs and stats are not important. I have a licenses PRTG installation used for this monitoring and capacity planning.
2.   Is there a way to refine this node/phone mac situation? If it is the 2 macs per interface, what is the most sensible way to refine this? One of the main deliverables the client wants before making a decision, is the ability to find an IP phone easily on the network.

Please keep in mind that I have only learnt NEDI’s operation in the last 3-4 months.
Many things, especially certain functions coming from older version are not architecturally clear. The operation and exact function sometime elude me.
As a guideline to the advice, below is the current information from the invoice statement. I am using this to provide the current basic cost considerations for their budget.
This should present an idea of the network size.
SNMP Devices      375   2.531      949
No-SNMP Devices   91   1.108      100
Nodes         4998   0.029      144

Other important factors:
1.   We are currently running on one big switched network. The mask is /20 and is basically full
2.   I have started migrating the network to a more segmented format. These are currently just separate VLANS on the same network and are routed by the core switch.
3.   We have some private networks behind firewall. These are not included yet but are typically small plant control networks.
Some of these questions and details might seem trivial, but these are the things I am currently struggling with. I am learning constantly and have two labs where I test different ideas with the tool, but the time constraint to get this on next year’s budget is requiring shorter timelines.
I am therefore asking for assistance here rather than trying to figure out the rest and learn it over time.

Thanks everyone that takes the time to read this and maybe contribute to my use of this tool.

[etiennef]

 

Ok.

For everyone that read this post and was perhaps also wondering about getting the connected interface easily when it was successfully populated as a neighbour, there is a way.

I have found the following two ways.
First, sql statement
select * from links where nbrifname='mac_address'

The second is from the menu.
Select topology option, links
from the drop down select Neighbor Interfaces and in the condition area type in the phone mac addrress

Click show

This will show you the interface and switch where this phone is a neighbour with the other info too.

I am still looking for good suggestions for the scheduled network discoveries.

Etienne

[rickli]

Hi and thanks for your feedback, it's well appreciated

You can contact me via info at nedi dot ch and I'll help resolving those issues. I haven't come across NEC phones yet, but it shouldn't be hard to discovery them properly as phones. We should also look at why the connections of your core switch are not identified as such.

As to regular discovery, you could skip modules, vlans and interface addresses during hourly scans. To avoid reading counters and and creating graphs you'll end up with  -Sgtedbmvj

Then once at night you can update modules, vlans and interface addresses, but skip nodes (ARP & MAC address tableS) -SAFtedb

This would result in the following crontab:
0 1-23 * * *   /var/nedi/nedi.pl -Aall -Sgtedbmvj > /var/log/nedi/nedi-`date +\%H`.run 2>&1
0 0    * * *   /var/nedi/nedi.pl -Aall -SAFtedb > /var/log/nedi/nedi-00.bup 2>&1

[etiennef]

Hi rickli

Thank you so much for the reply.

I really apprciate the input, feedback and response.

I will email you regarding the more detailed discussion.

Etienne