Device Administration

Description

Device Administration allows a user with Admin or SuperAdmin access levels to configure various Netreo-specific settings for a particular managed device.

To make changes to a device, navigate to the Device Dashboard of the managed device you wish to configure and click the gear icon to the right of the dashboard tabs. (The gear icon will then become a dashboard icon. Click the dashboard icon to return to the Device Dashboard.)

Most of the settings in Device Administration are automatically configured by Netreo (using auto-configuration rules and device templates) when a device is first added and generally should not be configured manually. Manual configuration should only be done when configuration using automated means is not possible or practical.

Auto-configuration rules are typically run only once, when a device is first added to Netreo. Device templates, however, apply their settings to devices every time a discovery poll is performed. Understanding which settings are controlled by device templates is important, as those settings will be overwritten—undoing any manual configuration.

Settings that are automatically configured by device templates are indicated with a lock icon next to the setting or in the setting's Actions column, preventing users from making any changes. Click the lock icon to open the edit page of the device template currently controlling that particular setting and make the change there instead. Change the setting as desired and save the template.

Device Administration is organized into the following tabs for easy navigation:

• Main - Settings to control high-level and general aspects of device management, as well as authentication.
• Host - Settings to control alerting options and parent/child device relationships.
• Service - Settings to control service checks assigned to the device.
• Instances - Settings to control interface monitoring, the collection of statistics from the device, and the configuration of threshold checks.
• Attributes - Additional user-generated information about the specific device.

Main Tab

The Main tab is made up of 3 sections:

• The polling and alerting status indicators
• The Details section
• The Authentication section

You must click Apply Changes at the bottom of the page for any changes you make here to take effect.

The top of the page contains the polling and alerting status indicators and shows whether or not device polling, threshold check alerts, and host and service check alerts are active for the device.

Poll Device

This switch determines whether or not performance metrics are collected from the device by Netreo. Select the switch to change its setting. You must click Apply Changes at the bottom of the page for any changes you make here to take effect.

Threshold Alerts

This switch determines whether or not assigned threshold checks may monitor performance metrics collected from this device. Select the switch to change its setting. You must click Apply Changes at the bottom of the page for any changes you make here to take effect.

Host & Service Monitoring

This switch determines whether or not assigned service checks may generate alarms for this device. Select the switch to change its setting. You must click Apply Changes at the bottom of the page for any changes you make here to take effect.

Details

The Details section manages the following core settings for the device.

• NAME
  The name assigned to identify this device. Netreo will use this name in all dashboards that list this device.
• IP ADDRESS
  The IP address assigned to this device on the network. Enter a new IP address to change it. (For EMC VNX device types only, click the edit icon on the left to manage alternate IP addresses for this device.)
• CATEGORY
  The category to which this device has been assigned. If the category has a device template assigned to it, the settings from that template will affect this device. Click the drop-down to assign a different category to this device.
• STRATEGIC GROUP(S)
  The strategic group(s) to which this device has been assigned. If the strategic group has a device template assigned to it, the settings in that template will affect this device. Change, add, or remove strategic group associations by clicking the edit icon. A managed device may belong to multiple strategic groups.
• SITE
  The site this device has been assigned to. If the site has a device template assigned to it, the settings in that template will affect this device. Click the drop-down to assign a different site to this device.

You must click Apply Changes at the bottom of the page for any changes you make here to take effect.

Debugging Tools Menu
At the top right of the Details section is the Debugging Tools menu, which provides the following contextual debugging tools for devices:

• Run Discovery Poll - (Not available for virtual host devices.) Schedule an immediate discovery poll for this managed device.
• Apply Templating - (Virtual host devices only.) Immediately run this managed device through the auto-configuration rules and apply applicable device templates.
• Test SNMP - Make sure SNMP is working properly with this device.
• Test WMI - Make sure WMI is working properly with this device.
• Test Call Manager - Make sure Cisco Call Manager is working properly with this device.
• Complete Debug Polling - Make sure Netreo is communicating properly with this device for polling purposes.

These tools will not appear for devices being polled by a service engine, as Netreo does not usually have direct access to these devices.

Advanced Options

Click Show Advanced Options at the bottom of the Details section to expand the section and display the following additional settings.

• Device Tag(s)
  Device tags allow you to apply custom tags to devices. These tags can then be searched for using the Netreo search engine.
• USE TEMPLATES
  When set to OFF, this device will not accept settings from any device templates except the “device-level” template, which must be manually assigned to the device. Turn this setting OFF to assign a device-level device template to this device.
• TEMPLATE(S)
  This table displays the device templates that this device is currently receiving configuration settings from and at what hierarchy levels they are being applied (templates lower in the table overwrite settings from templates higher in the table). At the bottom is the "device-level" template, which must be manually assigned to the device by clicking the edit icon on the right and selecting the desired device template from the drop-down. The Use Templates setting (above) must be set to OFF to assign a device-level template.
• DEVICE/SUBTYPE
  Displays the device type and any optional subtypes assigned to this device. The assigned type and subtypes can be changed by clicking the edit icon to the left. Only one device type may be assigned per device. However, multiple subtypes may be assigned. Note: Each assigned subtype may apply its own device template settings to the device.
• REMOTE POLLER
  Use this drop-down selector to select the service engine that should be used to poll this device, if any are being used.
• VALIDATED
  When set to OFF, this device will not appear (or contribute) to any generated reports or appear in dashboards (except administration dashboards).
• DISABLE DELETION
  When set to ON, this device cannot be deleted from Netreo. This setting is ON by default to prevent accidental device deletion. When set to OFF and Apply Changes at the bottom of the page is clicked, Delete Device will appear next to Apply Changes. Clicking Delete Device will permanently remove the device and its entire history of collected data from Netreo. It is typically preferable to disable a device in Netreo to stop monitoring it, rather than deleting it entirely. (The mass device deletion capability of a SuperAdmin user is not restricted by this setting.)
• SCHEDULED CONFIG CHECKS
  When set to ON, Netreo's config manager will perform its regularly scheduled device configuration archiving and check for this device. Set to OFF to exclude this device from configuration management.
• IP PROTOCOL VERSION
  If this device responds to both IPv4 and IPv6, the selected IP protocol version will take precedence. The change will take place after this device's normally scheduled (or manually initiated) discovery poll. This field is used to override the PREFERRED IP PROTOCOL VERSION setting (found on the global System Preferences page) for this specific device only.
• AUTO-CONFIGURATION
  This setting controls when auto-configuration rules should be run on the device after  the device has been initially discovered. The available settings are:
  • Never - Auto-configuration rules will no longer be run on this device. Select this after using one of the other options.
  • Run Once - Auto-configuration rules will be run and applied on the next scheduled discovery poll of this device. The field will then reset to Never.
  • Run Every Repoll - Auto-configuration rules will be run and applied on every discovery poll of this device.
• SHELL TYPE
  This setting selects the method by which Netreo will communicate to this device through the command line. The options are:
  • System Default - Use whatever communication method is set as the system default.
  • SSH - Force Netreo to communicate with this device using SSH (if the system default has been changed).
  • Telnet - Force Netreo to communicate with this device using Telnet.
• POLLING TYPE
  (Windows devices only) This setting is used to override the method by which Netreo polls Windows-based devices. The options are:
  • System Default - Use the method set as the default for all Windows devices on the System Preferences page.
  • Force Native PowerShell - Override the default setting to use Windows native PowerShell as the polling method. (Available for RHEL 8 and CentOS 8 only. Not compatible with polling on port TCP/5986. See System Preferences.)
  • Force WMI - Override the default setting to use WMI as the polling method. (For connecting to pre-version 10 Windows Server devices that still use the deprecated WMIC tool.)
  • Force WinRM (PowerShell) - Override the default setting to use PowerShell via WinRM as the polling method. (WMI commands are still used by PowerShell to collect polling data. See WMI Class Reference for more information.)
• SNMP OPTIONS
  These settings control how SNMP queries are made to this device. All settings are optional. The settings are:
  • TIMEOUT - The initial timeout (in seconds) for SNMP queries. (Default setting is 2, maximum is 60.)
  • RETRIES - The number of times a timed-out SNMP request will be retried. (Default setting is 5, maximum is 20.)
  • ALTERNATE SNMP PORT - Specify an alternate port to be used here.
  • BANDWIDTH OVERRIDE - Specify a custom bandwidth speed to override the detected speed for all interfaces on this device. Delete the setting to return to the device default speed. (This setting always overrides any individual bandwidth override settings configured on the Instances tab below.)
• DISABLE 1 MINUTE INTERFACE POLLING
  Set to ON to disallow automatic 1-minute polling of 10 GB and faster interfaces. (Note: Disabling of 1-minute polling for actively monitored interfaces will cause the loss of all historical data for those interfaces.)

You must click Apply Changes at the bottom of the page for any changes you make here to take effect.

Authentication

This section manages the authentication settings for this device. It is where the actual authentication information for accessing this device is stored. Netreo requires working authentication credentials for every managed device in order to retrieve relevant information from that device for monitoring purposes.

The range of settings available here is determined by the device type of the device. It is highly recommended that these settings be configured through the use of device templates.

Note that except for SNMP read-only community strings and usernames, the information stored here is encoded in a way that makes it unreadable outside of Netreo. If you think you may have set the wrong password or read-write string, the easiest way to fix the problem is simply to re-enter the correct string and click Apply Changes. Note that the username and local password can be controlled by different device templates if desired.

When configuring these fields, here are a few things to be aware of:

• Fields that are controlled by device templates are indicated by a lock icon to the right of the field. Click the lock to allow editing of the controlling template.
• For network devices, enter only a username if you are prompted for one to log into the device. If you use a username that is pre-enabled (logs in at the highest level of device access without further authentication), leave the Enable Password field blank. (For applicable devices, the down-level logon name format is accepted in the USERNAME field.)
• Allowable Characters - Netreo does not support the use of the apostrophe ( ' ) symbol in SNMP community strings.
• Bad SNMP Community Strings - An incorrectly configured read-only community string will return the same result as a device that is unreachable or that has filters preventing it from responding. This is a known limitation of the SNMP protocol and is not specific to Netreo.
• When adding the Exchange DAG device subtype to a managed device, a field labeled CERTIFICATE HOSTNAME appears in this section. This field may safely be left empty, as it is no longer required by Netreo and is set for removal.

Host Tab

This tab contains three sections:

• Alerting Options
• Alert Contacts
• Parent/Child

Alerting Options

The Alerting Options section contains settings that control availability monitoring. Fields that are controlled by device templates are indicated by a lock icon to the right of the field. Click the lock to allow editing of the controlling template.

You must click Update for any changes you make in this section to take effect.

• Host & Service Alarm Status
  This switch determines whether or not service checks may generate alarms for this device. Click the switch to change its setting. This setting performs exactly the same function as the "Host & Service Monitoring" switch on the Main tab (above).
• Renotify Interval
  This field specifies the number of minutes an incident generated by a failed host availability check will wait to be acknowledged or closed before running the next higher tier of action groups assigned in the Alert Contacts section (below). Netreo maintains a counter for the number of times the renotify interval has passed. When the amount of time specified in this field passes, the counter is incremented by one. The counter number correlates directly with the Alert Contacts escalation tier number. Setting a value of zero means that no matter how many times the renotify interval passes, only the action groups in escalation tier 1 will be run. A lock icon next to this field indicates that a device template controls the setting. Click the lock icon to edit the device template.
• Disable Polling If Device Is Down Longer Than
  This field specifies the number of hours a host must be down before Netreo "disables" the device for monitoring. Disabled devices are no longer monitored or alerted on. The purpose of this feature is to prevent redundant, unwanted alerting on devices that have been down for an excessively long time. Devices are disabled independently of incidents. So, it doesn't matter if a host down incident has been acknowledged or not. If the host comes back up, it will be re-enabled in Netreo, and monitoring and alerting will resume. Any associated incident will clear and close itself. A lock icon next to this field indicates that a device template controls the setting. Click the lock icon to edit the device template.

Alert Contacts

This section is for specifying the action groups that will be run when this device fails a host availability check. These action groups are called "host alert contacts" when assigned to a device in this way. Host alert contacts that are added by device templates are indicated by a lock icon to the right of the field. Click the lock to edit the controlling template. Host alert contacts are added cumulatively and are not overridden by applied device templates.

It is highly recommended that the addition of alert contacts to devices be done through the use of device templates. However, action groups can be added as alert contacts directly to this device manually by clicking Add Contact. Alert contacts added manually can be edited and deleted from here; alert contacts added by device templates cannot.

Alert contacts added here can be edited and deleted by clicking the respective icons in their Actions column. Alert contacts with a lock icon in their Actions column are controlled by a device template. Click the lock icon to edit the device template.

Parent/Child

These sections display lists of layer 2/layer 3 parent and child devices connected to this device (layer 2 is CDP only). Along with the site that each device is a member of and whether or not the parent/child relationship was manually configured by an administrator or automatically by Netreo.

The Actions button above the parent list provides the option to manually add/edit the parents of this device.

Service Tab

The Service tab is where all service checks added to this device are managed and has only one section, Service Checks.

The service checks table lists all the service checks currently monitoring services on this device, as well as their type (active/passive). It is highly recommended that all service checks be added to devices through the use of device templates. However, the Actions button provides a way to manually add individual service checks if necessary, and is context sensitive to the type of device (for example, Windows devices get the option to run the WMI service check wizard to add service checks for monitoring Windows services).

Instances Tab

The Instances tab is where threshold checks for network interfaces and performance statistic instances for a device are managed. It is also where the controllable settings for the device's network interfaces can be changed. The Instances tab consists of multiple collapse panels, all of which are closed when the tab is first opened. Click on a panel to expand it. If a lock icon is displayed in the Actions column of any interface/instance, it means that the threshold check settings for that interface/instance are controlled by a device template. If you wish to change any threshold check settings for these interfaces/instances, click the lock icon to edit the controlling device template.

The header for each panel on this tab identifies the category of the performance statistics it manages, as well as the total number of instances/threshold checks managed within it.

Network

The first panel is always the Network panel, which contains a listing of the device's network interfaces and interface threshold checks. Once the panel is expanded, it has three modes of display, selectable from a pull-down menu:

• Active Interfaces - The list of interfaces that are being actively polled for data by Netreo. See Monitoring Network Interfaces for more info.
• All Interfaces - The list of all interfaces that exist on the device. See Monitoring Network Interfaces for more info.
• All Thresholds - The list of configured threshold checks for interfaces. When this option is selected, and additional drop-down appears allowing you to select: All, Active or Inactive (see the section "Other Instances" below for information about these options).

The contents of the network panel table can be filtered in realtime using the search box next to the above display mode selector.

Note that the interface lists for a device are only updated during a discovery poll. So, if you make changes to the interfaces on your device, be sure to schedule an immediate discovery poll for it (see the Details section for the Main tab above). Otherwise, those changes will not be reflected in the lists.

When Active Interfaces is selected, you can manage several settings for each interface. The columns and their meanings are outlined below. (When All Thresholds is selected, see the section "Other Instances" below for information about these options)

• Description
  Displays a concatenation of the interface name and description as retrieved from the device during auto-discovery. Click the description to open a sub-panel that displays any bandwidth or errors-per-second threshold checks applied to this interface.
• Index
  Displays the index number of this interface as assigned by the device.
• Zoom
  Indicates whether or not this interface gets its own graph display on the Overview tab of the Device Dashboard. A checkmark means a graph is displayed, an X means it is not. Click to toggle the display for this interface. When the dashboard zoom is turned on, the tag Dashboard Zoom will be added to the interface tags. Turning it off will remove the tag. The tag can also be manually added and removed from the interface for the same effect.
• Traffic
  Indicates whether or not this interface is displaying a graph on the Traffic tab of the site dashboard for the site it belongs to. Be aware that the interface must also be configured from the device to export traffic flow information. This is indicated by a traffic flow icon in the same column (double arrows). A checkmark means the interface displays a traffic graph, and an X means it does not. Click to toggle the display for this interface. When turned on, the tag Site Traffic will be added to the interface tags. Turning it off will remove the tag. The tag can also be manually added and removed from the interface for the same effect.
• 1-Minute Polling
  Indicates if the interface is being polled at 1-minute intervals. This applies to 1 GB and faster interfaces only (10 GB interfaces are automatically set to poll at 1-minute intervals). Click to turn off 1-minute polling for that interface. (Note: Disabling of 1-minute polling for actively monitored interfaces will cause the loss of all historical data for those interfaces.)
• IP Address
  Displays the IP address assigned to this interface.
• Speed: In
  Displays the maximum bandwidth speed reported for this interface for inbound traffic, expressed as Megabits per second. This value can be overridden to correct improperly scaled graph data by using the plus button in the ACTIONS column. To remove an existing bandwidth override, enter 0 as the override value. If the interface speed cannot be reported via SNMP (or is reported as 0), the default value of 100 is used. See Why does Netreo sometimes show over 100 percent utilization on some interfaces? for more information.
• Speed: Out
  Displays the maximum bandwidth speed reported for this interface for outbound traffic, expressed as Megabits per second. This value can be overridden to correct improperly scaled graph data by using the plus button in the ACTIONS column. To remove an existing bandwidth override, enter 0 as the override value. If the interface speed cannot be reported via SNMP (or is reported as 0), the default value of 100 is used. See Why does Netreo sometimes show over 100 percent utilization on some interfaces? for more information.
• MAC Address
  Displays the MAC address of this interface.
• Status Alert
  Indicates whether or not this interface has a passive interface status service check assigned. Click the edit icon at the top of the column to manually bulk edit passive interface status checks for this device.
• Bandwidth | Poll
  Indicates whether or not this interface is being polled for bandwidth performance data.
• Bandwidth | Thresh
  Indicates whether or not this interface is having its bandwidth performance monitored by a threshold check.
• Errors | Poll
  Indicates whether or not this interface is being polled for error performance data.
• Errors | Thresh
  Indicates whether or not this interface is having its error performance monitored by a threshold check.
• Tag(s)
  Interface tags can be assigned to individual interfaces to make groups of interfaces easy to reference when generating reports. Click the edit icon at the top of the column to manually to bulk edit interface tags for this device.

When either the All Interfaces or Active Interfaces option is selected, two additional buttons appear on the table.

Basic Filter - Click Basic Filter to add/edit a basic regex filter to this device. Delete the filter and click the save icon to remove the basic filter from the device. Note that if a basic filter has been added to a device by a device template, any attempt to edit or delete that filter here will be overridden the next time that template is applied to this device. See Monitoring Network Interfaces for more information on interface filtering.

Advanced Filters - Click Advanced Filters to open the Advanced Interface Filter page, where you can more precisely control which interfaces will be included in the Active Interfaces list. See Monitoring Network Interfaces for more information on interface filtering.

Other Instances

The remaining panels display all other instances for the device organized by performance statistic categories, along with any threshold check settings configured for that instance. These panels have three modes of display for their tables, selectable from a drop-down:

• All - Shows all instances for the device categorized under that metric, whether they have an active threshold check assigned or not.
• Active - Shows only the instances with an active threshold check assigned.
• Inactive - Shows only the instances with an inactive or no threshold check assigned.

In all display modes the contents of each table can be filtered in realtime using the search box next to the display mode selector. The columns and their meanings are explained below.

• Active
  Indicates whether on not this instance has an active threshold check assigned to it.
• Description
  The name of the instance as provided by the device. The table can be sorted by this column by clicking the column header.
• Variable One
  Most resources are configured in pairs (variable one/variable two). See Threshold Checksfor more information
  • High - Indicates the high threshold WARNING (yellow) and CRITICAL (red) settings for this variable if either or both are set.
  • Low - Indicates the low threshold WARNING (yellow) and CRITICAL (red) settings for this variable if either or both are set.
  • Anomaly - Indicates the anomaly WARNING (yellow) and CRITICAL (red) sensitivity settings for this variable if either or both are set.
• Variable Two
  Most resources are configured in pairs (variable one/variable two). See Threshold Checksfor more information
  • High - Indicates the high threshold WARNING (yellow) and CRITICAL (red) settings for this variable if either or both are set.
  • Low - Indicates the low threshold WARNING (yellow) and CRITICAL (red) settings for this variable if either or both are set.
  • Anomaly - Indicates the anomaly WARNING (yellow) and CRITICAL (red) sensitivity settings for this variable if either or both are set.
• Contacts
  Indicates the number of action groups selected for the respective threshold check.

Attributes Tab

The Attribute tab lets an administrator associate arbitrary data with a specific device. Such data could include things like who is responsible for this device, where this device is located, whether there is something special about this device that needs to be known when working with it, etc. The section and its uses are described below. Any changes on this tab need to be saved by clicking Apply Changes.

Administrators can add as many device attributes and reference contacts as desired. Creative administrators will doubtless find many useful ways in which to use this feature to store device-specific data.

Device Note

This section allows you to store any notes or information that doesn't quite conform to any of the other sections. The information is stored as text only, and no formatting options are available.

Site & Location Information

This section provides a place to store the device geographical location. The geographical information supplied is purely anecdotal and in no way affects this device's site device group (although the device's site information is pre-populated here for convenience).

Attributes

This section allows you to add your own fields of type “x” (called device attributes) and the values for those fields. This provides a completely open-ended way for an administrator to attach key/value data that is convenient to be associated with a device—directly to that device. Any device attributes added to a device are then also available as filtering options for building auto-configuration rule sets and for the Top Talkers report. Click the plus button to add additional device attributes.

See Add a Device Attribute to a Managed Device

Reference Contacts

This section provides a place to store the names and contact information of useful or important individuals who are in some way relevant to this particular device. Reference contacts added here are not accessible outside of this device and don't have anything to do with action groups, host alert contacts, or alerting in general. Click the plus button to add additional contacts.