[TODO] Suggestions

[chadd]

Collect the serial number(if possible), model, and vendor for the devices you are polling and display that information on the device report page. Also add search fields for the information, so that you could do a quick little inventory if you wanted to... I know, I have suggested inventory before (still haven't had time to get to it), but this might be a good first step.

My vision would be something of a cross between the discover plugin and the the mactrack plugin(with expanded device and IP inventory capabilities) with the ability to add data to the database for each device as you wish (like notes or whatnot). It would also be REALLY COOL if you could discover the devices, add them to both the mactrack and cacti databases, and then be prompted to create graphs for them if you wish.. Complete integration... One place for all you data.. Ok, I'll stop dreaming . Thanks for the great plugin!

[TheWitness]

The correct thing is to merge data from your CMDB with MacTrack. That way network administrators can watch for unknown devices on your network. It's typically not a discovery functrion that MacTrack would do because typically, you may not have either snmp enabled or WMI access (for windows) on all the boxes.

It also slow's down the polling "excessively". I guess what I would concede is to possibly integrate this with the "authorized macs" function that I am planning on including. What I could do is when an unathorized mac is found, perform a discovery of the device using all the available methods available, like "netbios", "snmp", "ftp", "http", and "ssh" connect attempts. That would not be too bad.

TheWitness

[chadd]

The correct thing is to merge data from your CMDB with MacTrack. That way network administrators can watch for unknown devices on your network. It's typically not a discovery functrion that MacTrack would do because typically, you may not have either snmp enabled or WMI access (for windows) on all the boxes.

It also slow's down the polling "excessively". I guess what I would concede is to possibly integrate this with the "authorized macs" function that I am planning on including. What I could do is when an unathorized mac is found, perform a discovery of the device using all the available methods available, like "netbios", "snmp", "ftp", "http", and "ssh" connect attempts. That would not be too bad.

TheWitness

Ah, I understand. I was thinking strictly from a network admin perspective, and only caring about adds/changes to network equipment inventory - not computers. It would be nice though if you could add a row in the device table to keep notes in for a device (you could keep location info in it, or whatever. example: row E, Rack 11 Rack level blah..). Also, like I said before - critical inventory info for each device, like serial number, model number, etc.. I think for most vendors you can get the serial, model, etc. via snmp.

I am just thinking that between mactrack, and the cacti database, there is really little else I would need for simple inventory purposes. I have been thinking for a while that I need to write an inventory plugin, but I am not really sure if it would be worth the time. If you dedicated an entire plugin, you could make it a lot more robust - but you would certainly duplicate efforts. I would really like to just be able to update one database for everything: Add a device to inventory, create graphs, track macs, assign and reserve IP address (keep track of IPs used and such) - then the same for removing a device from the network.. One wizard. Almost every place I have worked, we've had a speadsheet for everything.. One for this, one for that.. exhaustingly...

I guess what I am asking, is do you think this is something I should embark on, or do you think it's a waist of time? Thanks again for everything.

[TheWitness]

So, I think I am hearing the following (sort of, correct me where I am missing something)

1) Add Inventory Tag information Like:
Corp Asset Tag No.,
Vendor Serial Number (you already know the model)
2) Add a Single Description Field (per Device) for Simple "notes"
3) Add a Field to the Device Type table to specify a specific OID for Serial Number

TheWitness

[chadd]

Yes, that is correct - although more concise than my ramblings . Thanks.

[TheWitness]

Well, it's done in SVN anyway. I need to turn on the polling of the Serial Number OID, but every thing else is basically done in SVN.

TheWitness

[chadd]

Well, it's done in SVN anyway. I need to turn on the polling of the Serial Number OID, but every thing else is basically done in SVN.

TheWitness

Can you add the ability to accept multiple serial numbers for a device? In the case of a switch stack there will be multiple switches represented by one IP/Hostname, multiple serial numbers and possible different models of switches. Thus, it would be great if you could also add model number collection . Thanks.