CiscoWorks Campus Manager

This document answers frequently asked questions (FAQ) about the CWSI application. As CWSI evolves from CWSI to CWSI Campus to Campus Manager, the network topology map discovery mechanism stays similar. Therefore, the questions that this document discusses still arise. For example, after you install CWSI, the discovery cycle can fail to detect network devices. Or, boxes can appear on the Campus map with a "red X" instead of the correct device icon. The IP address or host name of devices can change after network map discovery.

This document also describes the new additions on the Campus Manager topology map discovery.

A. Use the Properties menu to change the operation parameters of the Campus program. Choose Options > Properties, and click the Discovery tab. The Discovery fields are:

• Discovery Interval (sec)— This value determines how often, in seconds, the Campus program does a complete network discovery with use of the Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) information. Increase the value if the network has more than 50 devices or does not change frequently, as often as once a week on average. Increase the value to 14400, which is once a day. This change decreases how often the discovery daemon runs and results in better machine performance.
• Jump Router Boundaries— By default, the Campus program can discover the router, but does not discover beyond a router. To discover network devices beyond the router, you must enable the Jump Router Boundaries option. If you enable this function, however, the discovery process takes much longer to complete. The length of time to complete depends on the number of devices that exist beyond the router.
• Polling Interval (sec)— This value determines how often, in seconds, the Campus program verifies connectivity with each device with use of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Increase the value if the network has more than 50 devices or does not change frequently, as often as once a week on average. Increase the value to 3600, which is every 3 hours. This change decreases how often the SNMP connectivity daemon runs and results in better machine performance.
• Seed Device(s)— This is the IP address or Domain Name System (DNS) name of the device that is the "start point" for network discovery. Valid device types are Cisco Catalyst switches and ATM devices. The Catalyst switches include Catalyst 5000, Catalyst 5500, and Catalyst 2900 switches. The ATM devices include Cisco LightStream 1010.

  Note: The seed device should not be the address of a router or Route Switch Module (RSM).

Note: If you make any changes in the Properties window, click Apply, then choose File > Save ANI Properties. This action saves the options permanently. If you do not save the Asynchronous Network Interface (ANI) properties, the old property values return when you reboot the machine or restart the CWSI daemons.

A. CWSI Campus 2.3 (Maintenance Release #1) provided the ability to delete devices from the Campus topology map. The option to delete devices from the Campus topology map can be more desirable than reinitialization of the Campus database. Some reasons to choose to delete devices from the Campus topology map are:

• Discovery of a device in the topology map that is no longer in the network
• A change, since the initial network discovery, in the IP address of a device that is in the map
• A change in the host name/system name of a device

You delete devices from the Campus topology map with the checkdb command. However, before you issue the checkdb command, you must exit from the Campus topology map window. The checkdb command is in one of these locations, which depends on your platform:

• UNIX

  /opt/CSCOcwsi/bin/

• Microsoft Windows NT

  C:\cwsi\bin

Note: These directory paths are the default installation paths. A difference in the paths depends on the path you chose during installation.

To remove a device from the Campus topology map, exit from the Campus topology map window. Then, issue the checkdb command with this syntax:

checkdb ?d $IP_ADDRESS

In this syntax, $IP_ADDRESS represents the IP address of the device that you wish to remove from the CWSI map. The label of the device displays this IP address, or the label displays the name of the device that resolves this IP address.

After the checkdb command completes, a reminder to restart the CWSI Campus processes appears. You can restart the processes with one of these commands, which depends on your platform:

• UNIX

  /opt/CSCOcwsi/bin/startcwsiserver

• Windows NT

  C:\CWSI\bin\startcwsiserver.bat

This list presents several examples:

1. You want to remove a device that is no longer on the network. IP address 10.1.1.1 is the device label. You can remove this device from the CWSI map if you exit from the Campus topology map window. Then, issue this command:

   /opt/CSCOcwsi/bin/checkdb ?d 10.1.1.1
   

   After the checkdb command completes, a reminder to restart the CWSI Campus processes appears. You can restart the CWSI Campus processes with one of the UNIX/Windows NT commands in the previous list.
2. You want to remove a device that has an IP host name label. You can remove this device from the CWSI map if you exit from the Campus topology map window. Then, issue the checkdb command.

   Note: You must have the ?d option precede the IP address of the machine, not the IP host name of the machine. Therefore, before you issue the checkdb command, you must determine the IP address. The label displays the name of the device that resolves this IP address.

   After the checkdb command completes, a reminder to restart the CWSI Campus processes appears. You can restart the CWSI Campus processes with one of the UNIX/Windows NT commands in the previous list.
3. You want to remove a large number of devices from the map. There are enough devices that it is tedious to go through the checkdb command process for each device. In this situation, you can issue the reinitdb command. This command is in the same directory as the checkdb command. The reinitdb command replaces the existing CWSI database with a new one. When there is a new CWSI database, CWSI begins the initial discovery process from the start with no record of the prior database. Before you issue the reinitdb command, be sure to exit from the Campus topology map window. After the reinitdb command runs, the command reinitializes the databases and then restarts the CWSI Campus processes.

A. Like CWSI version 2.x network discovery, Campus Manager 3.0 still requires an initial seed device or multiple seed devices to discover an entire network. The two discovery protocols that Campus Manager uses are still Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) and Integrated Logical Management Interface (ILMI).

The name of the application that controls the network discovery process is Asynchronous Network Interface (ANI). ANI communicates with network devices via Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). On each device, ANI reads the CDP and/or ILMI cache information to obtain the neighbor device information. Because CDP is a Cisco proprietary protocol, the only devices that ANI discovery supports are Cisco devices. However, the exceptions to this rule are the Netscout switch probes, which ANI discovery also supports. ANI can pick up other devices, such as FORE Systems ATM switches, if you have configured the devices to run ILMI. However, these devices show up as unknown.

Initially, ANI queries each individual device to collect basic device and neighbor information. This stage is the "Acquire Phase". Later, all information that relates to CDP and ILMI information aids in the calculation of the overall network topology. This stage is the "Reduction Phase". At this stage, an analysis of all the CDP cache entries from all devices occurs.

To control Discovery options, choose CiscoWorks Server > Set Up > Ani Server Admin > Discovery Settings.

You can edit these properties:

• seed devices—You can enter the IP addresses here as the initial seed devices. Use of a Cisco Catalyst as the seed device is the best choice. For proper VLAN discovery, at least one seed device should be a VLAN Trunk Protocol (VTP) server in the VTP domain.
• jump router boundaries—This option allows you to control the discovery range. If you enable this option, discovery goes beyond the gateway router and extends to the entire network. Otherwise, discovery only occurs in the local segment that includes the seed device.
• use reverse DNS lookup—Disable this option if you do not use Domain Name System (DNS) in your network.
• filtering—This limits discovery, with IP addresses or VTP domains as a basis.