One of the features that’s included in IP Fabric's platform from the beginning of time is variability of network discovery inputs. First of all is Discovery Seed, which creates an entry point for discovery. Another functional feature is Filtering, which narrows down to what to include and what to exclude from discovery and analysis. But few things first. For successful discovery we need to have proper licensing in place and valid authentication settings which is not covered in this article.
It’s an optional feature, but will help significantly with defining network discovery start-point. If not set, algorithm will begin from the current default gateway, which in many cases is not the best scenario. In my lab, I know there’s a subnet 10.241.255.0/24, that I’d like to discover. In the menu it can be found in Settings > Discovery Seed.
With only this setup, IP Fabric was able to discover 24 devices in the lab, all within subnet 10.241.255.0/24. But we can also apply the filtering. By navigating to Settings > Advanced, we can define IP scope in greater detail by including or excluding networks or single IPs.
By applying the filter, I managed to discover only 20 network devices instead of 24, all within 10.241.255.0/25 subnet only. More networks can be easily applied to either Discovery seed or subsequent filter. And there’s even more interesting options that elevate IP Fabric versatility. Few to mention could be authentication per subnet, defining the trace route scope or site separation types (defined by Routing and Switching domain or by RegEx based on hostname). SSH and Telnet basic values can be played with like authentication failure retries or login timeout value and more.
If you’re interested in learning more about how IP Fabric’s platform can help you with analytics or intended network behavior reporting, contact us through our website, request a demo, follow this blog or sign up for our webinars.
