Adding wireless access points to IP devices
Hi, We are new to NAV and have a couple of questions regarding adding new IP devices. We are trying to add our Cisco 1242 and 1131 access points, and I can see that they are already added in the "Type" list. But we are using Lightweight AP's that does not have SNMP, so I do not have a RO community. How do I best add the access points then? Is it possible to use "WLAN" as device, or do I have to add it under "Other"? Also, adding IP devices, is it possible to have another name for them than the IP address? It's kind of confusing with over 100 IP-addresses for our access points... Regards, Lene Maria Myhre Wireless Trondheim
As far as I'm concerned, there is no way to add a WLAN device as its own category, only its own subcategory. This will appear as its own field in reports etc. Regarding your lightweight APs, the use of NAV without SNMP support is rather limited as NAV is based on SNMP and ICMP (ping) mostly. The only useful information you'll be able to see is wether the device is reachable on the network or not (although that’s pretty useful..) But no, theres really no other equivialent to SNMP in regards to NAV. About naming your devices. NAV is based on your items DNS names (reverse/PTR records) If your device has no PTR entry in DNS (reverse lookup), your device will appear as a 'plain' IP address in NAV. As NAV is depending on DNS to name devices properly, there is no other way (that I know about) to make names/aliases to devices with no DNS names. I'd suggest to make a list of your AP IP addresses/devices and names, and send them do your hostmaster to name them in DNS (ap2013.wifi.ntnu.no for example) I hope that helps a bit :-) ------------------------------------------------------ Vidar Stokkenes Networking Consulant Dep. for networking og telecommunications HN IKT - Tromsø Tlf: 76 16 61 87 / 77 66 99 55 Cell: 95 87 99 42 e-mail: vidar.stokkenes@hn-ikt.no Before printing, think about the environment -----Opprinnelig melding----- Fra: lene.myhre@item.ntnu.no [mailto:lene.myhre@item.ntnu.no] Sendt: 3. november 2008 09:15 Til: nav-users@uninett.no Emne: Adding wireless access points to IP devices Hi, We are new to NAV and have a couple of questions regarding adding new IP devices. We are trying to add our Cisco 1242 and 1131 access points, and I can see that they are already added in the "Type" list. But we are using Lightweight AP's that does not have SNMP, so I do not have a RO community. How do I best add the access points then? Is it possible to use "WLAN" as device, or do I have to add it under "Other"? Also, adding IP devices, is it possible to have another name for them than the IP address? It's kind of confusing with over 100 IP-addresses for our access points... Regards, Lene Maria Myhre Wireless Trondheim
On Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:50:39 +0100 Stokkenes Vidar <Vidar.Stokkenes@hn-ikt.no> wrote:
As far as I'm concerned, there is no way to add a WLAN device as its own category, only its own subcategory. This will appear as its own field in reports etc.
I'm not sure I follow you here? NAV has 7 main equipment categories: EDGE, GSW, GW, OTHER, SRV, SW and _WLAN_. The latter is intended for Wireless access points that support SNMP. -- mvh Morten Brekkevold UNINETT
I misread the question. I suggested to make her own subcategory for her devices, I didn't realize she wanted a suitable category for non SNMP enabled devices. -Vidar -----Opprinnelig melding----- Fra: Morten Brekkevold [mailto:morten.brekkevold@uninett.no] Sendt: 3. november 2008 13:27 Til: nav-users@uninett.no Kopi: Stokkenes Vidar; 'lene.myhre@item.ntnu.no' Emne: Re: Adding wireless access points to IP devices On Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:50:39 +0100 Stokkenes Vidar <Vidar.Stokkenes@hn-ikt.no> wrote:
As far as I'm concerned, there is no way to add a WLAN device as its own category, only its own subcategory. This will appear as its own field in reports etc.
I'm not sure I follow you here? NAV has 7 main equipment categories: EDGE, GSW, GW, OTHER, SRV, SW and _WLAN_. The latter is intended for Wireless access points that support SNMP. -- mvh Morten Brekkevold UNINETT
On Mon, 3 Nov 2008 09:15:17 +0100 (CET) lene.myhre@item.ntnu.no wrote:
We are new to NAV and have a couple of questions regarding adding new IP devices. We are trying to add our Cisco 1242 and 1131 access points, and I can see that they are already added in the "Type" list. But we are using Lightweight AP's that does not have SNMP, so I do not have a RO community. How do I best add the access points then? Is it possible to use "WLAN" as device, or do I have to add it under "Other"?
Hi Lene, welcome to the list. The WLAN category requires the device to answer SNMP requests. You will need to add your lightweight APs under the OTHER category to avoid the SNMP requirement. This means that NAV can only do status monitoring of these devices.
Also, adding IP devices, is it possible to have another name for them than the IP address? It's kind of confusing with over 100 IP-addresses for our access points...
The name NAV uses for an IP device is it's DNS name. If NAV cannot perform a reverse DNS lookup on a device's IP address, the IP address will be used as its name. We believe that registering proper DNS names for all devices is part of a good network documentation process, which is why NAV enforces this (i.e. NAV is not a replacement for good network administration practices, but a great supplement to it). This is also why NAV will issue an alert when it discovers that the SNMP sysname retrieved from a device does not match the name retrieved from DNS. However, NAV's behavior in this regard will change in a future version. The name is today referred to as sysname, yet it is actually a dns name. A future version of NAV will have separate dnsname and sysname attributes for an IP device, where the sysname in most cases will be what has been found using SNMP queries. -- mvh Morten Brekkevold UNINETT
Morten Brekkevold wrote:
On Mon, 3 Nov 2008 09:15:17 +0100 (CET) lene.myhre@item.ntnu.no wrote:
We are new to NAV and have a couple of questions regarding adding new IP devices. We are trying to add our Cisco 1242 and 1131 access points, and I can see that they are already added in the "Type" list. But we are using Lightweight AP's that does not have SNMP, so I do not have a RO community. How do I best add the access points then? Is it possible to use "WLAN" as device, or do I have to add it under "Other"?
Hi Lene, welcome to the list.
The WLAN category requires the device to answer SNMP requests. You will need to add your lightweight APs under the OTHER category to avoid the SNMP requirement. This means that NAV can only do status monitoring of these devices.
Hi. Morten. One quick question regarding monitoring of lightweight access-points. When will NAV be able to handle AP up-/down-traps sent from wireless controllers? Then you will not need to register APs in NAV since the wireless controllers handle this part. The APs are already registered there so that makes sence :-) But NAV will do the part with sending SMS/email to the right people and maintain a list of APs down. -- Best regards Vidar Stokke Chief Engineer IT-division, Networking Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:52:26 +0100 Vidar Stokke <vidar.stokke@ntnu.no> wrote:
One quick question regarding monitoring of lightweight access-points. When will NAV be able to handle AP up-/down-traps sent from wireless controllers? Then you will not need to register APs in NAV since the wireless controllers handle this part. The APs are already registered there so that makes sence :-) But NAV will do the part with sending SMS/email to the right people and maintain a list of APs down.
Hi Vidar, NAV can already receive AP association/disassocation traps from Cisco Wireless Controllers and translate these into alerts. Your colleague John-Magne implemented this for NAV 3.4. This is the same as AP up/down, right? NAV does not, however, maintain a list of slave APs that are down, since the slave APs themselves aren't registered in NAV in any way. Maybe this is the function you're actually asking for? -- mvh Morten Brekkevold UNINETT
participants (4)
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lene.myhre＠item.ntnu.no -
Morten Brekkevold -
Stokkenes Vidar -
Vidar Stokke