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 The download link is somewhat out of date.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