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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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: Select Interface that has assigned IP address associated with current DNS […]
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.
By default when you create a GRE tunnel (tunnel-ip1) on ASR9K routers it gets assigned default Bandwidth value of 8Kbps which usually causes utilization monitoring confusion as Tunnel can carry as much traffic as its hardware parent interface where tunnel is anchored to. You would see utilization values as high a 10,000% percent with default Bandwidth […]
During network discovery phase Nectus collects S/N for each device that responds to basic SNMP queries. One of the problem with Cisco Devices is that different platforms uses different OID to store S/N. Following OIDs are being used for Cisco: .1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.1.1.1.11.1 .1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.1.1.1.11.2 .1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.1.1.1.11.10 .1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.1.1.1.11.22 .1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.1.1.1.11.1001 .1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.1.1.1.11.24555730 .1.3.6.1.4.1.14179.1.1.1.4.0 .1.3.6.1.4.1.2467.1.34.4.0 .1.3.6.1.4.1.437.1.1.3.1.22.0 .1.3.6.1.4.1.9.20.1.1.1.1.3.0.1.3.6.1.4.1.7505.1.1.1.0 .1.3.6.1.4.1.9.6.1.101.53.14.1.5.1 .1.3.6.1.4.1.9.9.92.1.1.1.2.1 .1.3.6.1.4.1.9.3.6.3.0 .1.3.6.1.4.1.3076.2.1.2.22.1.63.0 .1.3.6.1.4.1.9.5.1.2.19.0 […]
Just run into a IOS-XR bug with running SNMP v3 with AES-128 cipher (as well as AES-192 and AES-256) on ASR 9000 Routers running 5.3.4 Code. Apparently Cisco BUG ID CSCvd35831. Fixed in 6.2.xx code. Upgrading ASR9K is fun that can take 4-5 hours per box but having SNMP communications secure is more important. Consider upgrading. […]
Sometimes specific device categories (UPS units, Printers etc) must be excluded from network discovery due to their low importance from the Network Monitoring prospective or due to security concerns or because of their impact on Nectus processing load. This can be achieved with OID ignore list. For example we want to prevent all Xerox ApeosPort Series […]
To obtain list of ifIndex values for all interfaces for given device SNMP polling agent has to send SNMP GET BULK request for the following OID: .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1 Response Example: ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.1’ => “1” ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.2’ => “2” ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.3’ => “3” ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.4’ => “4” ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.5’ => “5” ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.6’ => “6” ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.7’ => “7” ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.8’ => “8” ‘.1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.9’ => […]
This short video shows basic steps to generate site level network topology
Nectus Datasheet Medium
IOS-XR SNMP v3 configuration example for username “user_des” snmp-server group admins v3 priv snmp-server user user-des admins v3 auth md5 “authpass” priv des56 “privpass” SystemOwner this configuration will use MD5 hash for authentication and DES cipher (DES56) for encryption. IOS-XR (as of 5.3.4 code) also supports 3DES – 168 bit 3DES algorithm for […]
During Nectus installation user can define up to 10 IPv4 subnets that will be used as initial seed subnets for ICMP scan. Immediately after Installation is completed Nectus starts ICMP scan of provided subnets and builds a list of live IP addresses that responded to Ping.
When Nectus discovers a new device it uses its SNMP sysObjectID (1.3.6.1.2.1.1.2) value to classify device by manufacturer, by major platform category and by model number. For example sysObjectID value of 1.3.6.1.4.1.9.1.1018 Defined as: Manufacturer Value: Cisco Systems (9) Major Category: Cisco ASR 9000 Aggregation Services Routers Model: Cisco ASR 9006 Routers