...
Both Basic and Extended groups can be created as either top-level, sibling, or child groups. NetMRI automatically assigns a parent group ID to the group you create. You can drag and drop a group in the tree for the desired position. For more information, see the following sections:toc
The table in the Device Groups side tab lists all device groups, with default sorting by Rank. Each row shows group configuration settings. Parent groups appear as folder icons indicating that child device groups exist beneath them in the tree. The device groups table provides a series of columns showing the status of various discovery and monitoring features that are enabled or disabled for each group.
...
The complete list of data points provided for every device group at all nested levels includes the following:
...
ARP (Refresh device caches) | Indicates whether member devices in the group will have their ARP caches refreshed before collecting discovery data. NetMRI uses ARP cache refresh to control LAN switches from which switch-forwarding data is collected. |
| |
SNMP | Indicates whether the device group is set to enable SNMP data collection for member devices. SNMP collection can also be enabled/disabled for groups and devices. |
PS (Port Scan) | Indicates whether members of the device group will be scanned for open protocol ports. If enabled, NetMRI probes the TCP and UDP ports listed at Settings icon –> Setup –> Port List, to determine whether they are open. |
| |
FP (Fingerprint) | Indicates the device group setting to use the Identify device using fingerprinting setting for member devices. (This setting is dependent on the Probe for Open ports feature.) A polling technique to identify each network device based on the response characteristics of its TCP stack. This information is used to determine the device type. In the absence of SNMP access, fingerprinting is usually the only way to identify non-network devices. |
| |
C (Collect configs) | Indicates the device group setting to allow config file collection for all members in the group (Collect config files). |
CCS (CCS scripting) | Indicates the device group setting to allow CCS script file execution for all members in the group (Allow Script Execution). |
| PP (Privileged Polling) | Indicates whether the option CLI polling in privileged mode (i.e. privileged exec (enable) mode) is enabled for the group the device belongs to. You can override this setting for an individual device in the Device Viewer. |
DC (Default Credentials) | Indicates the device group setting for Test for Default Credentials, used to scan for the presence of vendor default credentials for all members in the group. |
A (Issue Analysis) | Indicates the device group setting to allow Issue analysis for all members in the group (Analyze for Issues). |
| |
CL (Config Lock) | Indicates the device group setting to collect config data but to consider all member device configs locked and not to be changed through NetMRI (Regard configurations as 'locked'). |
| |
| UGPF (Use Global Polling Frequency) | Indicates whether the device group uses the global polling frequency value. |
| PF (Polling Frequency) | Indicates whether the device group uses a custom polling frequency value. |
NB (NetBIOS Scan) | Device polling method to collect the NetBIOS name for endpoint devices in the network. Device groups also enable NetBIOS scanning. |
| |
DB (Discovery Blackout) | Indicates the device group setting to impose discovery blackouts. |
| |
CB (Change Blackout) | Indicates the device group setting to impose configuration change blackouts. |
| |
SPMC (SPM | Indicates the device group setting to allow switch port data collection (Switch port data Collection) |
. | |
SPMS (Polling Schedule) | Indicates whether the device group provides a polling interval or scheduling for switch port data collection. This setting is dependent on an enabled Switch port data Collection setting for the device group. |
MC (Membership Criteria) | Hovering the mouse over the check box in this column shows the complete regular expression for the selected device group. |
...
|
Creating a Top-Level or Sibling Device Group
By default, a new top-level device group is inserted at the bottom of the list, denoting a lower ranking. Creating a sibling group allows you to insert a device group into a specific position in the list of device groups, defining different ranking for the new group. You can insert the new sibling group immediately above or below the selected upper-level group.
...
- Open the Settings icon > Setup > Collection and Groups > Groups.
- Do one of the following:
- To add a top-level device group, click Add in the bottom-right corner of the groups window.
- To add a sibling group, right-click a top-level group and select Add > Sibling Above or Sibling Below from the shortcut menu.
The Add Device Group dialog appears.
- In the Parent ID field, NetMRI automatically sets the ID of the parent group. It is "0" for a top-level or sibling group.
- Enter a Name for the new group. The group name is shown in all group-related displays and reports, so the group name should be meaningful without being too long.
- Enter a Membership Criteria regular expression. See Understanding Device Group Membership Criteria for details.
- For Type, select either Basic or Extended. By default, Basic is selected. For more information about extended device groups, see Creating Extended Device Groups.
- Click Save & Close or Save & New.
...
...
Creating a Child Device Group
Child device groups should only contain devices belonging to their parent group. Creating a child device group of the top-level group “Routing” and using a device group criteria regular expression to filter other devices (e.g., firewalls) will result in an empty device group.
...
- Click the Settings icon > Setup > Collection and Groups > Groups.
- Right-click a device group and select Add > Child from the shortcut menu.
The Add Device Group dialog appears. - Select either Basic or Extended. By default, Basic is selected. For more information about extended device groups, see Creating Extended Device Groups.
- In the Parent ID field, NetMRI automatically sets the ID of the parent group.
- Enter a Name for the new child group. The group name is shown in all group-related displays and reports, so the group name should be meaningful without being too long.
- Enter a Membership Criteria regular expression. For more information, see Understanding Device Group Membership Criteria.
- Click Save & Close or Save & New.
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
Nested device groups also operate with Issue Analysis. For information, see Issue Analysis in NetMRI and its subsections. Nested device groups inherit their Issue settings from their parent device groups, and may need editing to suppress Issues that are not relevant to them. |
...
Creating Extended Device Groups
...
...
To create an Extended device group, complete the following:
- Click the Settings icon > Setup > Collection and Groups > Groups.
- Click Add to create a top-level, sibling, or child extended group.
- In the Parent ID field, NetMRI automatically sets the ID of the parent group. It is "0" for a top-level or sibling group.
- Enter a Name for the group. The group name is shown in all group-related displays and reports, so the group name should be meaningful without being too long.
Define a Membership Criteria regular expression.
Note title Note Infoblox recommends using regular expressions for refining the membership in device groups. The topic Understanding Device Group Membership Criteria provides the information you need to understand and define regular expressions for device groups.
- If you want the device group to include collections of discovered non-network devices, select Include non-network devices. Leaving this setting unselected prevents non-network devices from occupying valuable licensing space.
- Next to Type, click Extended.
- Rank: Displays the Ranking value as the default sort order. For more information, see Ranking Device Groups. Ranking value is used as the default sort order for all group-related tables, with the highest rank shown first. Rank is also used to determine the individual device settings controlling processing for each device.
Polling Frequency: Allows you to slow down or speed up the device polling frequency. For more information, see the following section, Setting Polling Frequency for a Device Group.the device polling frequency.
For Switch Port data Collection, choose from the following:
- Use Global Settings: Select this to enable the device group to inherit global settings for switch port data collections. To find the global settings, click the Settings icon > Setup > Collection and Groups > Global > Switch Port Management. For more information, see Global Switch Port Management Polling Settings.
- Specify Polling Interval: Overrides the global polling interval with a custom polling interval for the current device group. You can define an interval of 1-60 Minutes or 1-24 Hours in the fields that appear.
- Specify Schedule: Overrides the global scheduled polling setting with a custom schedule for the current device group. Existing schedules may appear in the list or, click Add New Schedule to create a new polling schedule instance. Choose a Recurrence Pattern of Once, Hourly, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. In all cases, you must choose an Execution Time and select at least one day of the week check box.
- Poll Now: Click to execute switch port polling on the device group right after it is created.
Disable: Completely disables switch port polling for the device group.
Note title Note The polling frequency modifier described in the previous step does not affect settings for switch port data collection frequency.
- Activate the processing options for the new Extended group:
- Collect performance and environmental data Enable or disable device performance and environmental information for all member devices in the group. For more information, see Changing Performance Data Collection Settings.
- CLI polling in privileged mode: Enable or disable CLI polling in privileged exec mode for the device group. You can override this setting for individual devices in the Device Viewer.
- Probe for open ports: If enabled, TCP and UDP ports listed at Settings icon > Setup section > Port List are probed to determine whether they are open.
- Analyze device using fingerprinting: If enabled, fingerprinting attempts to identify each device based on the response characteristics of the TCP stack being used.
- Probe for NetBIOS name: Setting to enable NetMRI to collect the NetBIOS names for endpoint device members in the device group. For more information, see Defining Group Data Collection Settings. It It is globally disabled by default to prevent unexpected scanning of the network by a new Operations Center Collector.
- Analyze for Issues: NetMRI evaluates over 250 discrete Issues, plus custom Issues defined by the admin user. Issues are discovered and reported by NetMRI based on globally set schedules. Disabling this feature for a device group disallows the group from being selectable in the Device Group Selector panel in the main Network Analysis –> Issues page. For more information, see Evaluating Issues in NetMRI, and Viewing Device Issues, Configurations and Changes.
- Test for default credentials: Allows NetMRI to test all devices in the group for the presence of vendor default SNMP credentials, which are a potential element for security breaches, but are also used for assistance in collecting device configurations. Credential default testing is also a compliance measure.
- Collect config files: When enabled, this check box allows NetMRI to collect all present configuration files for devices in the device group. To participate in the Configuration Management feature set, which allows you to view and compare differences between running-config and saved-config configuration files, edit, and manage config files on devices. For more information, see Configuration Management.
- Regard configurations as 'Locked': Disallows editing of any collection configuration files for members of the device group.
- Allow script execution: Allows the execution of Perl and CCS scripts on member devices.
- Refresh device caches before collecting switch port data: Check box to enable refreshing of ARP caches on switches and switch-routers in the managed network before NetMRI performs polling of switch ports.
Enabling this feature will not produce an automatic ping sweep of the managed network. For more information on ping sweep, see Defining Group Data Collection Settings. The benefit of this feature is that it enables more accurate detection of all endpoint devices on switches. Without ARP refresh, some endpoint devices may not be detected. This feature is globally disabled by default. With this setting globally enabled, individual device groups can also be set to enable or disable this feature.
For more detailed descriptions of these options, see Global –> Network Polling and Config Management.
...
- Choose an Execution Time from the drop-down list.
- Schedule the day of the month: A discovery blackout can be executed monthly on a specific day, or blackout instances can be executed more than one month apart on a specific day, in the Day of every month(s) field.
- Specify the Duration: 10 or more Minutes, Hours, or Days.
...
| title | Note |
|---|
...
- more Minutes, Hours, or Days.
13. If necessary, select the Enable Change Blackout check box and click its Scheduling icon. The scheduling options appear. Follow steps 12a through 12e to define the change blackout schedule.
...
| title | Note |
|---|
14. Click Save & Close or Save & New.
Some devices in your network may have a locked Config Change setting (Device Viewer –> Settings & Status –> General Settings), which means that NetMRI will be disallowed from changing configurations on the device. In these cases, a device-level Enable Change Blackout setting is unnecessary. Similarly, each NetMRI device group has a Regard configurations as 'locked' setting. If a device group uses this setting, the Enable Change Blackout setting is unnecessary. If a device group does not enforce a change blackout, but a device in that group enables the Regard configurations as 'locked' setting, the device setting takes precedence
...
14. Click Save & Close or Save & New.
...
Setting Polling Frequency for a Device Group
...
You can set global or individual polling frequency for an extended device group. You do so by specifying a polling frequency modifier. This is a coefficient by which the default NetMRI setting is multiplied. The higher the coefficient, the more frequently devices in the current group are polled.
...
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
Currently, the polling frequency modifier does not apply to SDN devices as they use a different polling engine. |
...
Additional Device Group Operations
To view a list of device group members (devices that are included in the device group), complete the following:
...
Use caution when deleting a system group, because deleting such a group can negatively affect the discovery process. When you attempt to delete a system group, a warning is displayed. If you rename a system group, the group is no longer considered as system-created after an upgrade.
...
Device Groups Action Menu
The Device Groups page provides the complete list of top-level device groups, populated with a series of gear icons. Clicking each icon displays a shortcut Actions menu offering group editing features: for device groups, features include the following:
...
Default device groups serve as good examples of how selection criteria and process settings can be defined to organize your network devices, but you should learn how to create your own device groups to gain all of the benefits of the device groups feature.
...
device groups feature.
Understanding Device Group Membership Criteria
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
One way to understand how you define membership criteria for device groups is to look at existing Extended device groups in the system, including Routing, Switching, and Security. |
...
Device Groups also determine how its member devices will be interacted with by NetMRI. For example, if SNMP Collection or Config Collection are disabled for the highest ranking group containing a given device, then no SNMP data collection or Configuration file collection is performed for that device (beyond the initial collection needed to detect its existence). You use the same processes and settings to define Interface Groups (described in Creating Interface Groups.) The process for Device Groups is straightforward.
...
$ifType like /FastEthernet/
...
Device Group Criteria and Device Custom Fields
Device Groups offer the flexibility to specify custom fields data as matching information against custom fields identification values defined on individual devices. You specify custom fields information in device groups through the Device Group Criteria. Doing so, you can craft device groups that match specific types of information, such as Business Units, operational function, and so on. Based on the information in the section Defining and Using Custom Fields, you You can create device custom fields (“device” is a specific type of custom field that you can create and use for data matching) that are referenced by specific device groups for collection of devices into logically-named groups in NetMRI for asset manageability.
...
Consider the creation of a device custom field called “business_unit.” For information on how to create custom fields in NetMRI, see Defining and Using Custom Fields. Editing see Extending Network Device & Data Support. Editing the Device Group Criteria field for a device group called “Consumer Banking Group” to support a device custom field, the typical syntax is as follows:
...
You prepend the constant $custom_ to the value “business_unit” to create the expression $custom_business_unit = “Consumer Banking”. Doing so in the Device Group Criteria ensures that any device that possesses a matching field value will match the “Consumer Banking Group” device group.
...
Device Group and Interface Group
...
Criteria for Networks
Because devices are managed as part of one or more network views, you can define device groups or interface groups with criteria based on network membership.
...
- The hasnetwork operator returns a value of true if at least one device interface is part of the specified network views list:
Syntax example:
hasnetwork[”blue”,”red”,”green”]
...
- views list:
Syntax example:
hasnetwork[”blue”,”red”,”green”]
Device Group/Interface Group Membership and Issue Suppression
To change issue thresholds and suppress issues for device groups, click the Settings icon > Issue Analysis > Issue Group Settings icon > by Device Groups and by Interface Groups side tabs. After selecting a group in the left panel, the Issue Settings for Group table lists all issues for the group and shows the current thresholds (if any) in the Criteria column, and whether any listed issue is suppressed.Consult the topics Issue Group Settings and Performing Issue Suppression for more information.
...
Creating Interface Groups
After Discovery, you can organize all interfaces discovered on the network into collections of named groups. Similar to device groups, interface groups can be used to organize interfaces for results analysis, troubleshooting or to manage interface data collection. Interface group membership is determined periodically and stored in the database. Interface Groups have considerably narrower use in NetMRI compared to Device Groups.
NetMRI ships with a set of common-sense default interface groups that automatically organize common interfaces, such as switched Ethernet ports, VLANs and Ethernet trunk interfaces. Interface groups can be modified or copied, pasted and edited to create new ones, or you can create entirely new groups (provided you have admin rights to do so).
...
Interface Groups Action Menu
The Interface Groups page provides an Actions column, populated with a series of gear icons. Clicking each icon displays a shortcut Actions menu offering group editing features: for interface groups, View Members lists the interfaces within the group. Copy, Edit, and Delete perform their respective functions on the selected group.
...
- Go to Settings icon –> Setup –> Collection & Groups –> Interface Groups side tab.
- Click the Add Group button (below the Interface Groups table). The Add Interface Group dialog appears.
- Type a Name for the interface group. The group name is shown in all group-related displays and reports, so it should be meaningful without being too long.
- Enter a Rank for the interface group. For more information, see Ranking Device Groups for details.
- Type a Membership Criteria expression. For more information, see Understanding Device Group Membership Criteria.
- Activate the processing options for the group.
Performance Statistics Collection: If enabled, NetMRI collects performance data for interfaces in the group. If disabled, the appliance gathers minimal data for interfaces in the group. This setting can be overridden for an individual interface in the Interface Viewer –> Settings icon –> General Settings page.
Frequency: Select the performance statistics collection interval. The default is set as Daily.
...
Exercise caution when deleting groups, because any associated group settings such as filtering and other attributes will also be deleted. For related information, see Expressions in Group Definitions.
...
deleted.
Gathering Performance Data from Interface Groups
Performance data consists of utilization rates, error rates and broadcast levels for the interfaces that are gathered into an interface group. You can also view the same performance data for each interface in the interface viewer.
...
By default, collection takes place daily. For some interfaces, you may need to collect performance data more frequently. To do so, select a different setting from the Frequency dropdown. Values include Daily (the default), and incremental values from 15 minutes to 2 minutes.
...
...
| title | Note |
|---|
You can use more-frequent data collection only on a select number of interfaces. Up to 10% of the total interfaces up to the Interface Limit in the managed network, based on the NetMRI license.
- To enable performance data collection for a specific interface: Open the interface in the Interface Viewer. In the Settings section –> General Settings page, enable Performance Statistics Collection by selecting Enabled from the dropdown menu and clicking Update. This setting overrides the parent interface group's setting.
...
Use interface groups for suppression of certain interface related issues and to modify thresholds for their appearance. Interface group issue suppression removes the need to manually suppress undesirable issue instances and allows for instances that have yet to be raised — and to be suppressed — to be suppressed before they are even raised. You can review interface group issue suppression settings at the Settings icon –> Issue Analysis section –> Issue Group Settings page.
...
Expressions in Group Definitions
Group membership expressions consist of one or more logical sub-expressions (e.g., equals, like, in), acting on a set of variables (e.g., $Name, $Type) evaluated by boolean operators (e.g., and, or, =>, <=). You can specify any logical membership criteria using sub-expression combinations. Some variables are defined only for certain types of criteria expressions.
...
Device Variables
...
...
NetMRI defines the following device variables that are usable in Device Group, Interface Group, Device-Filter, and Section-Filter criteria expressions:
...
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
All device variables and interface variables are case-insensitive. |
...
Interface Variables
...
...
The following variables are defined for interfaces and supported in Interface Group criteria expressions:
$ifIndex unique SNMP numeric index for the interface$ifDescr interface description defined by user$ifName interface name$ifType interface type defined by SNMP$ifMtu interface MTU$ifPhysAddress interface MAC address (if any)$ifSpeed interface speed$ifAdminStatus interface administrative status ("up"/"down")$ifOperStatus interface operational status ("up"/"down")$ifTrunkStatus interface trunk status ("on"/"off")$Network returns the name of the network view to which the interface IP address belongs.
...
Comparison Operators
...
...
The following comparison operators are supported in all criteria expressions:
...
For Rules in the Policy Design Center, simply use a comma-separated format.
...
Logical Operators
...
...
The following logical operators can be used to combine sub-expressions:
...
memberOf ["Routing Group”"] and $IPAddress in [10.1.0.0/16, 10.2.3.45]
...
Regular Expressions Usage
...
...
NetMRI uses regular expressions similar to those supported by Cisco, JavaScript and Unix UNIX programming languages. Regular expressions supported for table filtering consist of a sequence of special symbols, modifiers and normal characters. NetMRI interprets the following single characters and expressions as follows:
...
| Note | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
A common mistake occurs by using the Unix wildcard syntax (*) instead of the regular expression syntax (.*) to match any sequence of characters. |
...
Using Expression Modifiers
With the special symbols above, the following characters are treated as modifiers that can be used to match against a previous sub-pattern zero, one, or more times:
...