[racktables-users] Re: support for other switches
- From: Denis Ovsienko <pilot@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: racktables-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 12:05:09 +0300
On Thu, 6 Nov 2008 17:34:34 -0500 phish phreek wrote:
> Hello All.
>
> Please excuse me if this information is posted elsewhere. I've searched
> through the wiki and the mailing list archives and I didn't see it listed.
> I stumbled upon Rack Tables after searching for a solution for ip address
> management. I was pretty impressed by the demo and I've downloaded it and
> installed it on one of my network monitoring boxes.
>
> I see that there is a feature to map switch ports. However, it appears as
> though racktables only supports scanning of Cisco switches? My network
> environment consists of Cisco routers, Cisco ASA firewalls, sonicwall
> firewalls, nortel (L3+L2) and netgear(L2) switches. I have several stacks
> which consists of Nortel ERS 5500, Nortel ERS 4500 and many stand along
> Netgear GSM7224 switches. When I try to use the SNMP feature, I get an
> message saying that it doesn't know how to handle it. Here is an example
> when trying to scan a 5510 stack: "No idea how to handle Ethernet Routing
> Switch 5510-48T HW:34 FW:5.0.0.4 SW:v5.1.2.035 BN:35 (c) Nortel Networks"
>
> Can someone please outline what I need to do in order to enable support for
> these devices?
Many pieces of hardware behave differently, so the current approach is
to manually review SNMP dump of each hardware being added to the "known"
list. It's a good idea to give new code a try on the real hardware
before releasing it. Let's try a couple of your smaller switches to see
how other vendors work. Send me offlist the following:
1. Exact name of the model and/or OEM part number.
2. Output of the following:
snmpwalk -v 1 -c public switchname sysDescr.0
snmpwalk -v 1 -c public switchname sysObjectID.0
snmpwalk -v 1 -c public switchname ifTable
3. Which modules were actually plugged in (GBIC, X2, 24/48xGE and so
on).
> I'm currently using Netdisco (http://www.netdisco.org) to map my switches
> but I'd really like the additional features that Rack Tables provides.
>
> My main goals are to be able to identify which switch ports have which
> devices on them. I like that in netdisco I can type in the hostname, the ip
> address or even a partial mac address and I get the results I want. However,
> I don't have any way to manage IP address utilization, switch to patch panel
> mapping, patch panel to room mapping etc. Right now I have that info in an
> access database and just run reports when I need to.
>
> I'm not that great of a programmer or else I'd focus on taking netdisco and
> incorporating it's features in Rack Tables myself. Or, maybe I'm mistaken
> about what Rack Tables is actually supposed to be used for.
Each software has strong and weak points. Perl knowledge isn't on my
personal skill list, so if we talk about Netdisco, I can borrow
good ideas, but not the code. Beware, with the time being the most
scarce resource currently, I have to be picky about items on the
project todo list. That's the way to keep things going.
--
Denis Ovsienko
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