As a follow up on the L2 database/mapping capabilities...

1. I notice that sometimes IM correctly identifies a device as a switch 
(Juniper EX2200 for example), and thus allows it to be used as an "L2 
discovery" system to populate the MAC tables. This is good, however, yes, not 
all ports carry all IP addresses on every port as per Jurgen's email below.

2. Sometimes IM incorrectly identifies something as a switch (such as a 
wireless access point in bridge mode)  and thinks it's a switch (since it has a 
mac-bridging table) although it only has 2 interfaces: LAN and WLAN. Hence, it 
gets added to the list of switches; and I cant seem to get rid of it from the 
L2 switch list (including changing the device to "behaviour: router"), and even 
deleting the AP off the map. Whenever I try to rediscover all my wired-station 
endpoints & devices, everything on the map ends up connecting to the "LAN" port 
on the Access Point. =) (since, hey, thats where IM says it sees those MAC 
Addresses coming from!). See point #3:

3. If IM doesn't initially get an SNMP mac-briding-table when it first 
interrogates a device, then it will never add the device into the "list of 
switches", even though the device is a switch. (I didn't have SNMP enabled on a 
target Juniper EX4200 switch when I first added it, hence IM couldn't poll the 
device). I enabled SNMP, and the device was then pollable; but IM seems to 
refuse to put the device into the "L2 list of switches", and will not consult 
the device. (this includes me changing behaviour: switch against the device).

4. Some devices are combination routers/switches. For example, an Juniper 
SRX240; is both router, firewall, and switch. IM discovered it as a router, and 
hence doesn't add it into the list of L2 switches, even though it has 16x1Ge 
switching ports on it (and it's indeed acting as a switch on 15 of it's 
interfaces). I cant seem to convince IM to interrogate the device as a switch. 
(or, at least has some switching-like functionality)

So, what I think may be in everyones interest is:

1. Ability to manually delete a device from the "list of switches"; so that it 
never consults it again (and removes all references to it in the 
database/discovery) cleanly.

2. Ability for the human to instruct IM to accept a device as a switch 
(provided it has a proper mac-bridging-table), and allow IM to use that device 
as a resource to discover my end-systems/endpoints/MAC Addresses/etc, even 
though the device may be "more than just a dumb switch" =). (Think Integrated 
Router/Firewall/Switch/MPLS-endpoint)

If there's a clean way of doing this exposed in the GUI, that would be great. 
(There's back-door ways of doing this after spelunking some old emails on the 
beta-releases on the L2 funcitons - I've been playing with them in the 
betas..); however, please expose the ability to manipulate the L2-devices 
database (add/remove/delete/etc...) what it's classifying as a switch. 
Generally, the human is smarter than the algorithm in terms of knowing what is 
a switch, and what isn't. =)

Regards,

- Chris.


On 2011-03-09, at 8:54 PM, Jürgen Brändle wrote:

> Ho Bill,
> 
> your hint to change the Device from "Switch" to "Router" solved the problem 
> with
> the "false" subnets in the network ovals.
> But a lot of my devices having this problem are "Switches".
> Wouldn't this "kills" the new Layer 2 features for this devices?
> 
> Greetings from Germany
> 
> Jürgen
> 
> 
> Am 08.03.2011 um 22:25 schrieb William Fisher:
> 
>> On 3/8/11 9:23 AM, Jürgen Brändle wrote:
>>> I installed 5.4 this morning but got some little annoying problems.
>>> In some of my maps I had the label set to display the following:
>>> 
>>>> <Interface Alias> - <Port Name>
>>>> <Subnet List>
>>> 
>>> but I recognized, that since 5.4 there are a lot of subnets in the oval 
>>> that has nothing to do with
>>> this interface (see screenshot "subnet-problem")
>> We made a change in 5.4 in how InterMapper auto-detects switches. I'm 
>> assuming that all the network ovals connected to the device have essentially 
>> the same list of subnets. Please select the affected device and choose 
>> Monitor -> Set Behavior...  If the Map Device As... setting is now set to 
>> Switch, change it back to Router.
>> 
>> Please let me know if this helps. 5.4.1b1 is returning to the previous 
>> behavior.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Bill Fisher
>> Dartware, LLC
>> ____________________________________________________________________
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> 
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