2006 Nov 14 - Tue

Netdisco Installation and Configuration

Netdisco maintains interface status for Cisco based devices. Netdisco is a Sourceforge hosted project with a main project page at http://www.netdisco.org/. The download link is somewhat out of date. The instructions contained herein pertain to obtaining the most recent version via version control.

Download the software and prepare the directories:

cd /usr/src
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@netdisco.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/netdisco login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@netdisco.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/netdisco co -P netdisco
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@netdisco.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/netdisco co -P mibs
mkdir /usr/local/netdisco
mv mibs /usr/local/netdisco
mv netdisco/* /usr/local/netdisco
useradd -d /usr/local/netdisco netdisco
chown -R netdisco.netdisco /usr/local/netdisco

Make changes to config file by 'nano /usr/local/netdisco/netdisco.conf':

domain        = .example.com
db_Pg_pw      = netdisco
port_info     = true
community     = public
bulkwalk_off  = true
graph_x       = 40
graph_y       = 30
node_fontsize = 8.0

In the file, /usr/local/netdisco/html/login.html, change the line 'my $userip = $r->connection->remote_ip;' to 'my $userip = $r->user();'. Do something similar for:

line 103 login.html
line 96 autohandler
line 24 admin_user.html
line 22 portcontrol.html

In /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default, insert the two lines:

Include /usr/local/netdisco/netdisco_apache.conf
Include /usr/local/netdisco/netdisco_apache_dir.conf

Fix the mason cache directory:

mkdir /usr/local/netdisco/mason
chown -R netdisco.www-data /usr/local/netdisco/mason
chmod -R 775 /usr/local/netdisco/mason

Install through perl:

perl -MCPAN -eshell
install Text::Reform
install IO::Tee
install Bundle::DBI
install Apache::DBI
install Heap
install Graph
install Compress::Zlib
install Net::NBName

Prepare PostgreSQL (should have already been installed with the base OS), create the database, and create the tables:

cd /etc/postgresql/7.4/main
nano pg_hba.conf
  host netdisco netdisco 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 trust
  local netdisco netdisco trust

/etc/init.d/postgresql-7.4 restart
cd /usr/local/netdisco/sql/
./pg --init
# follow prompts
./pg 
  # \q to exit

Prepare SNMP:

#apt-get install libnet-snmp-perl
apt-get install libsnmp-base
apt-get install libsnmp-perl
perl -MCPAN -eshell
install SNMP::Info

Install GraphViz:

apt-get install graphviz
apt-get install libgraphviz-perl

Ensure the Apache2 trimmings are installed:

apt-get install libhtml-mason-perl
apt-get install libdbi-perl
apt-get install libdbd-pg-perl
#apt-get install apache2-dev
apt-get install apache2-threaded-dev
apt-get install libapache2-mod-apreq2
apt-get install libapache-dbi-perl
apt-get install libmasonx-request-withapachesession-perl
apt-get install libapache2-request-perl
ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/apreq.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/apreq.load

Use WinSCP to copy c:\windows\fonts\arial.ttf and c:\windows\fonts\lucon.ttf to /usr/local/netdisco.

Update some permissions:

#chgrp netdisco /usr/local/netdisco/*.conf
chown -R netdisco.www-data /usr/local/netdisco
chmod 660 /usr/local/netdisco/*.conf

Import OUI database (get latest from web if you want):

cd /usr/local/netdisco
wget http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/oui/oui.txt
./netdisco -O

Test the configuration by performing some preliminary scanning:

cd /usr/local/netdisco
./netdisco -r center_network_device
./netdisco -m
./netdisco -a
./netdisco -w
./netdisco -g

Add a user in Netdisco (and provide it with port control and admin rights):

/usr/local/netdisco/netdisco -u admin

Restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Startup netdisco by browsing to:

http://localhost/netdisco

Make changes to /usr/local/netdisco/netdisco.crontab. If nothing else, at least change center_network_device to something. Then start cron job:

crontab -u netdisco /usr/local/netdisco/netdisco.crontab
/usr/local/netdisco/bin/netdisco_daemon start
ln -s /usr/local/netdisco/bin/netdisco_daemon /etc/init.d
update-rc.d netdisco_daemon defaults 25

You may need to up date netdisco-topology.txt

Links

A link to a scipt for installing an earlier version, with mrtg insertions.

  http://www.isc.cnrs.fr/informatique/public_notice/netdisco-install-english
  

[/OpenSource/Debian/Monitoring] permanent link

Check SMTP (email server)

Sometimes you want to check to see if you have access to an email server directly. A check like this may be necessary on some DSL networks where the ISP will block port 25, which is the standard port that email servers listen in on, due to issues with SPAM and rogue servers.

You can do the check from the command line with a program called telnet:

telnet mail.example.com 25

For mail servers with a Barracuda mail server, you may get a response like:

220 mail.example.com ESMTP (19a38e746d4fc812318d47ee6fa159ea)

Here is a sample session:

mail from:sender@example.com
250 2.1.0 sender@example.com... Sender ok
rcpt to:recipient@example.com
250 2.1.5 recipient@example.com... Recipient ok
data
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
subject:  Test Message
to: recipient@example.com
This is the body of the message.
.
250 2.0.0 kAEK9vHC005225 Message accepted for delivery
quit
221 2.0.0 mail.example.com closing connection

[/Personal/Technology] permanent link