Table Of Contents
Managing and Grouping Devices
Managing Devices
Displaying Device Attributes
Editing a Device
Enabling or Disabling Device Monitoring
Displaying a Device Monitoring Summary
Deleting a Device, a Group, or a Context
Managing Device Groups
Creating a Group
Editing a Group
Deleting Groups
Managing and Grouping Devices
In Performance Monitor, a device is either a physical node in the network or it is a virtual node that is defined by a physical node. In either case, whether physical or virtual, a device must be IP-addressable.
For example, you can use multicontext mode to partition a single firewall into multiple virtual devices, known as security contexts. A firewall that runs in multicontext mode has a configuration for each context to define its security policy, interfaces, and other options — just as you might expect to configure equivalent options on a physical device.
System administrators add and manage contexts in the system configuration. The system configuration identifies basic firewall settings, but does not include any network interfaces or network settings for itself; rather, it uses a context that is designated as the admin context.
The admin context is just like any other security context, except that a user who logs in to the admin context has administrative rights over the system and all of the other contexts. In Performance Monitor, you import only the admin context from a device when you want to monitor every configured context on a physical device. Similarly, when you delete an admin context in Performance Monitor, you simultaneously delete the record that Performance Monitor maintains for every context on the relevant physical device.
There are two possible behaviors when Performance Monitor represents a specific security context in lists, menus, graphs, reports, logs, or other places:
•
The IP address of the admin context appears as a prefix for the context name, as follows: <IP_address_of_admin_context>:<context_name>. This happens when Performance Monitor has, by default, used the admin context IP address and credentials to poll and monitor the security contexts on a validated device.
Note Performance Monitor automatically discovers all of the security contexts on a device when you import the admin context and — as a convenience to you — uses the IP address and credentials information for the admin context to poll and monitor the other contexts on the device. However, when Performance Monitor uses the admin context IP address to poll and monitor security contexts on a device, no more than five contexts can be monitored. If your device includes more than five contexts, you can manually enter the IP address and credentials for any or every context at any time after discovery.
•The IP address of the security context appears without any prefix. This happens after you manually edit the credentials of a context that was previously represented in the default way, <IP_address_of_admin_context>:<context_name>.
A device group in Performance Monitor is similar to a folder. Some device groups are system-defined, where others are user-defined:
•System-defined device groups automatically sort your physical devices and security contexts by device or service type. System-defined device groups are consistent and logical.
•User-defined device groups in Performance Monitor are an organizational convenience in which you can collect any combination of devices, security contexts, and other device groups. Among the devices in a user-defined group, no physical, logical, or topological relationship is assumed unless you organize devices in a consistent way.
Note Topics in Chapter 2, "Before You Begin," describe the device import and device validation features under the Devices tab.
Topics in this section describe the following options under the Devices tab:
•Managing Devices
•Managing Device Groups
Managing Devices
When you select Devices > Managing Devices, Performance Monitor displays an object selector and action buttons that enable you to manage your devices. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Tip If you have recently imported or added a device and it is not yet visible in the GUI, click Refresh to update the device list in the Managing Devices object selector.
Note To understand device icons in the Performance Monitor GUI, see Understanding Device Icons, page 3-6.
The following topics explain the device management options.
•To understand device attributes and the View button, see Displaying Device Attributes.
•To understand configurable device properties and the Edit button, see Editing a Device.
•To understand the Enable Monitoring button and the Disable Monitoring button, see Enabling or Disabling Device Monitoring.
•To understand the device monitoring operations summary and the Report button, see Displaying a Device Monitoring Summary.
•To understand the use and effect of the Delete button, see Deleting a Device, a Group, or a Context.
Displaying Device Attributes
You can display attributes for any validated device.
Before You Begin
Make sure that you have the correct privileges to use this option. See User Permissions, page 3-2.
Procedure
Step 1 Select Devices > Managing Devices.
The Managing Devices page displays an Object Selector and action buttons. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Step 2 Select a device or a device group from the selection tree, then click View.
The View Device Detail window displays device attributes (Table 11-1).
Note The View Device Detail window displays no details for a parameter in cases where the corresponding parameter is not set on the device.
Table 11-1 View Device Detail Window
Parameter
|
Displayed Value
|
Polling Enabled
|
Yes or No.
|
Name
|
Hostname, IP address, or SNMP sysname.
|
IP Address
|
Device IP address
|
SysName
|
System name.
|
SysOid
|
Unique identifier for the device type.
|
Product
|
Specific product revision.
|
Family
|
Device type.
|
Version
|
Software version installed on the device.
|
Description
|
Detailed device description.
|
Contact
|
Person to contact if this device is malfunctioning or misconfigured.
|
Location
|
Physical location of the device.
|
Editing a Device
You can edit the SNMP settings and device credentials that Performance Monitor uses when it communicates with a device for validation or polling.
If you select a security context to edit, special considerations apply because you can change the way Performance Monitor represents that context in lists, menus, graphs, reports, logs, or other places if you change the IP address that Performance Monitor associates with the context.
Note•Validation and polling for a device take more time to complete if the number of SNMP retries or the SNMP timeout period is greater than the default.
•If you manually edit the credentials of a security context that Performance Monitor represented previously in the default way, <IP_address_of_admin_context>:<context_name>, the security context is represented by its own IP address.
Before You Begin
Make sure that you have the correct privileges to use this option. See User Permissions, page 3-2.
Procedure
Step 1 Select Devices > Managing Devices.
The Managing Devices page displays an object selector and action buttons. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Step 2 Select a device or a device group from the selection tree, then click Edit.
Tip You can select more than one device at a time. However, your selections are limited to devices of the same type.
Step 3 In the Edit Devices window, complete the optional tasks that meet your requirements (Table 11-2).
The refreshed display shows the result of any optional task that you complete.
Step 4 (Optional) If you plan to save your changes and implement them, you can select the Validate edited devices check box to revalidate the edited device or device group automatically after you click Apply.
Step 5 Do one of the following:
•To discard your changes and close the Edit Devices window, click Cancel.
•To save your changes and implement them, click Apply.
Table 11-2 Optional Tasks in the Edit Devices Window
Optional Task
|
Procedure
|
Additional Information
|
Specify a different SNMP read community string.
|
Overwrite the string in the Read Community (or the Chassis Read Community) text box.
|
The read community string is a password that allows read-only access to the specified device or security context. The default is public. If the community string on your device (or devices, if you selected more than one) differs from the default, you must specify the correct community string before validation can begin and before you can monitor the device.
A single Read Community entry can apply to all of the devices that you select, provided that all devices use the identical string.
In the case of a security context, the correct read community string to use is the one associated with the IP address that Performance Monitor uses to poll and monitor the context.
|
Specify a different SNMP timeout setting.
|
Select a value from the SNMP Timeout list.
|
This value is the number of seconds Performance Monitor waits for a response from the device before it asks for a response again. The minimum duration is 1 second and the maximum is 60 seconds. The default is 10 seconds.
|
Specify a different number of SNMP retry attempts.
|
Select a value from the SNMP Retries list.
|
This value is the number of tries Performance Monitor makes to communicate with the device before declaring that the device has timed out. The default is 1 try.
|
Use a different administrative username.
|
Overwrite the existing username if Performance Monitor displays the Username text box.
|
Performance Monitor displays the Username text box for devices and security contexts that support Telnet connections.
In the case of a security context, the correct username to use is the one associated with the IP address that Performance Monitor uses to poll and monitor the context.
|
Use a different administrative password.
|
Overwrite the existing password if Performance Monitor displays the Password text box and the Confirm Password text box.
|
Performance Monitor displays the Password text box and the Confirm Password text box for devices that support Telnet connections.
|
Use a different enable password.
|
Overwrite the existing enable password if Performance Monitor displays the Enable Password text box and the Confirm Enable Password text box.
|
Performance Monitor displays the Enable Password text box and the Confirm Enable Password text box for devices and security contexts that support Telnet connections.
The enable password activates the privileged enable mode on a Cisco IOS device when you access the device through a remote Telnet connection. Certain privileged operations can occur only when a device is in enable mode.
In the case of a security context, the correct enable password to use is the one associated with the IP address that Performance Monitor uses to poll and monitor the context.
|
Specify a different IP address to use when polling a security context.
|
From the list, select either the IP address that is assigned specifically to the context, or select Admin Context IP.
|
This optional task is available only when you edit the attributes of a security context.
Your selection from the list might invalidate the credentials that you configured Performance Monitor to use when it polls the context, because any context can have its own credentials.
If you select an IP address from the list, confirm that all other values are still correct, or edit them now.
|
Validate the device to confirm that its edited attributes are correct.
|
Select the check box.
|
A one-time validation starts.
|
Enabling or Disabling Device Monitoring
Tables, graphs, and reports contain information about only those validated devices for which monitoring is enabled. Performance Monitor automatically enables monitoring after a successful device validation; thus it automatically polls the device in following polling cycles.
If you decide to exclude a device from polling, you can disable monitoring for it. Later, at your discretion, you can reenable monitoring manually.
Before You Begin
Make sure that you have the correct privileges to use this option. See User Permissions, page 3-2.
Procedure
Step 1 Select Devices > Managing Devices.
The Managing Devices page displays an object selector and action buttons. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Step 2 Select a device or a device group from the selection tree, then do one of the following:
•Click Enable Monitoring to poll the selected device in every polling cycle.
•Click Disable Monitoring to stop polling the device.
The page is refreshed.
Step 3 (Optional) Select a device from the selection tree, then click View to verify whether monitoring is enabled or disabled for the device.
The Info window displays text that describes the device (Table 11-1). The first line of text says exactly either:
•Polling Enabled: YES
•Polling Enabled: NO
Displaying a Device Monitoring Summary
You can display an operations summary that tells you when Performance Monitor most recently updated the information it uses for tables and graphs under the Monitor tab, and to what extent it updated that information.
Procedure
Step 1 Select Devices > Managing Devices.
Note If you plan to display the monitoring summary, it is not necessary to select anything from the Managing Devices selection tree. If you make selections, they will have no effect on the displayed result.
Step 2 Click Report.
Table 11-3 describes elements in the Monitoring Summary window.
Table 11-3 Monitoring Summary Report
Column
|
Description
|
Polling Unit
|
Identifies the category of information for which monitored values were updated.
|
Last Polling Update
|
Displays the time and date at which polling occurred most recently, in this format: HH:MM:SS CiscoWorks_Server_timezone YYYY/MM/DD.
|
No. Records Updated
|
Displays the number of updated records for the relevant polling unit.
|
No. Records
|
Displays the total number of records that Performance Monitor has stored for the relevant polling unit.
|
Time Taken
|
Displays the amount of time that Performance Monitor required to update the relevant polling unit.
|
Deleting a Device, a Group, or a Context
Performance Monitor enables you to delete its record of a validated device or all devices in a device group. You can also delete the record of a validated admin context. When you delete an admin context, you also delete every virtual context that is associated with that admin context. You cannot directly delete a virtual context.
Before You Begin
Make sure that you have the correct privileges to use this option. See User Permissions, page 3-2.
Procedure
Step 1 Select Devices > Managing Devices.
The Managing Devices page displays an object selector and action buttons. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Step 2 Select at least one object from the selection tree, then click Delete.
•If your selection includes a device, that device is removed from system-defined groups and user-defined groups. Performance Monitor no longer polls the device.
•If your selection includes a virtual context, Performance Monitor deletes its record of, and stops polling, that virtual context.
•If your selection includes a device group, all of its member devices are removed from system-defined groups and user-defined groups. Performance Monitor no longer polls any of the devices.
•If your selection includes an admin context, Performance Monitor deletes its record of that admin context as well as its records of all of the virtual contexts on the same physical device. Performance Monitor no longer polls any context on the relevant device.
Information about your selected devices, virtual contexts, device groups, or admin contexts no longer appears in Performance Monitor tables, graphs, or reports.
Managing Device Groups
Device groups enable you to interact with multiple devices in a single operation. A device group is a named entity that can contain devices, other groups, or a combination of devices and groups. A group is the conceptual equivalent of a folder.
If you select Devices > Managing Groups, you can display existing device groups and place devices into new or existing groups.
Tip Click Refresh to update the device groups list in the selection tree.
The Managing Groups page displays an Object Selector and action buttons. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Every device known to Performance Monitor appears in one or more of the system-defined groups and might also appear in user-defined groups.
System-
Defined
Groups
|
System-defined groups exist by default as soon as you install Performance Monitor:
•The Device Types folder organizes all devices by device type, and lists even those validated devices for which you have temporarily disabled monitoring.
•The Monitored Devices folder organizes monitored devices by device type. It lists only those validated devices for which monitoring is enabled.
You cannot edit or delete a system-defined group. Performance Monitor populates system-defined groups automatically, based on the information it reads from devices during polling. For information about enabling or disabling monitoring for a device, see Enabling or Disabling Device Monitoring.
Note In the GUI, a system-defined group reflects device or network changes only after Performance Monitor completes the next polling cycle. See Working with System Parameters, page 12-11 for help with configuring polling intervals.
|
User-
Defined
Groups
|
User-defined groups are groups that you create to meet a requirement that the system-defined groups cannot meet. For example, you might create groups that divide your network assets by geographic regions or corporate divisions.
You can define any number of groups. All groups can contain any combination of subgroups and devices in an organizational hierarchy that you specify.
|
Creating a Group
You can create user-defined device groups.
Note To understand the requirements for valid group names and valid group descriptions, see Naming Guidelines.
Before You Begin
Make sure that you have the correct privileges to use this option. See User Permissions, page 3-2.
Procedure
Step 1 Select Devices > Managing Groups.
The Managing Groups page displays an Object Selector and action buttons. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Step 2 Click either the Device Groups folder or a user-defined group.
Your selection defines the parent of the group you create.
Step 3 To configure a new device group, click Add.
Note You can create a new group only if you select its parent first. You cannot add subgroups to any system-defined group.
The Add Group page displays an Object Selector, text boxes, and action buttons.
Step 4 Enter a valid name for the new group in the Name text box.
Step 5 (Optional) Enter a valid description of the new group in the Description text box.
Step 6 In the selection tree, do either or both of the following:
•Select one or more devices.
•Select one or more device groups (to select all of the subgroups and devices that they contain).
Step 7 To add the selected devices to the new group, click Add.
Added devices appear in the Devices in Group list.
Note To add more devices to the new group, repeat Step 6 and Step 7.
Step 8 (Optional) To remove devices from the group, select them from the Devices in Group list, then click Remove.
Step 9 Save or discard your changes and return to the Managing Groups page:
•To save the new group, click Save.
The new group is displayed and added to the Object Selector.
•To discard your changes, click Cancel.
Naming Guidelines
Performance Monitor imposes these restrictions on the names and descriptions of user-defined device groups:
•No more than 64 characters are permitted in a device group name.
•No more than 256 characters are permitted in a device group description.
•In addition to spaces and alphanumeric characters (upper case and lower case) such as a123b or A123B, Performance Monitor permits only these characters in device group names and descriptions:
! # % ( ) * + / - : ; = ? _ [ ] \ { } ~ $ , .
•These characters are forbidden in group names and descriptions:
" ' " " ` @ ^ & < > |
Editing a Group
You can edit the names, descriptions, and structure of user-defined device groups.
Before You Begin
Make sure that you have the correct privileges to use this option. See User Permissions, page 3-2.
Procedure
Step 1 Select Devices > Managing Groups.
The Managing Groups page displays an Object Selector and action buttons. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Step 2 Click a user-defined device group.
Step 3 To change the device group, click Edit.
Note You cannot edit a system-defined group.
The Edit Group page displays an Object Selector, text boxes, and action buttons.
Step 4 Complete the optional tasks that meet your requirements (Table 11-4).
The refreshed display shows the result of any optional task that you complete.
Step 5 Save or discard your changes and return to the Managing Groups page:
•To save the new group, click Save.
The new group is displayed and added to the Object Selector.
•To discard your changes, click Cancel.
Table 11-4 Optional Tasks in the Edit Group Page
Optional Task
|
Procedure
|
Additional Information
|
Change the device group name.
|
Change the device group name in the Name text box.
|
See Naming Guidelines.
|
Provide or change the device group description.
|
Enter the new or changed device group description in the Description text box.
|
See Naming Guidelines.
|
Add devices individually to the edited group.
|
1. Select one or more devices from the selection tree.
2. To add the selected devices to the edited group, click Add.
Added devices appear in the Devices in Group list.
|
—
|
Add devices to the edited group from one or more other groups.
|
1. Select one or more device groups (to select all of the subgroups and devices they contain).
2. To add the selected devices to the edited group, click Add.
Added devices appear in the Devices in Group list.
|
—
|
Remove devices from the edited group.
|
Select devices from the Devices in Group list, then click Remove.
|
—
|
Deleting Groups
You can delete user-defined device groups.
Before You Begin
Make sure that you have the correct privileges to use this option. See User Permissions, page 3-2.
Procedure
Step 1 Select Devices > Managing Groups.
The Managing Groups page displays an Object Selector and action buttons. See Using an Object Selector, page 3-10.
Step 2 Click a user-defined device group.
Step 3 To delete the device group, click Delete.
Note You cannot delete a system-defined group.
Step 4 Click OK.
Although you delete the user-defined group, the devices in that group are not deleted. You can continue to access the relevant devices from the system-defined device groups in which they are listed.
