Device Profile and Connectivity Testing

Test Connectivity

The Test Connectivity button opens the Profile Connectivity window shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Profile Connectivity Window

Click the Use Management IP check box if the devices to be tested have management IP addresses specified for out-of-band use.

Click Options to open the Test Connectivity Options window shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Test Connectivity Options Window

In the General tab, you can:

• Specify which test methods you want to use (Ping, SSH, SNMP, NETCONF). Multiple methods are allowed (by default, all methods are tested). To select or deselect methods, click the corresponding check boxes.

• Allow for concurrent access of a number of devices by specifying a simultaneous access limit from 1 to 16. The default is 7.

In the SNMP tab, you can add optional SNMP get community string(s), one per line. If an SNMP connectivity check fails with the community string specified in the device profile (SNMP Parameters tab), these additional community strings are tried until one succeeds.

In the Login/Password tab, you can enter alternate login credentials to be used in case of login/password failure.

Click OK to submit your selections and close the Test Connectivity Options window.

In the Profile Connectivity window, click Start to begin the connectivity test. You can click Stop if the test fails to complete quickly. The test is complete when the green (pass) or red (fail) status icons are displayed. Figure 5 shows an example.

Figure 5: Connectivity Test Results

In SNMP connectivity testing, the host name and device type (vendor) are polled and are auto-populated in the test results if the information was previously missing or incorrect in the device profile. A red triangle in the upper left corner of a field in the test results indicates that a change was automatically made. You can see an example in the Device column in Figure 5. To propagate those changes to the device profile, click Profile Fix at the bottom of the Connectivity Test Results window.

To display the detailed test results for an individual device in the lower part of the window, click the device row in the upper portion of the window, even if you only tested connectivity for a single device. Click Export to export the connectivity results report as a CSV file.

Add Device

The Add button opens the Add New Device window shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Add New Device Window

Table 2 describes the data entry fields under the General tab.

Table 3 describes the data entry fields under the Access tab.

The fields on the SNMP Parameters tab are required to set up for SNMP collection. The SNMP parameters are shown in Figure 7 and described in Table 4.

Figure 7: Add New Device Window SNMP Tab

If you select SNMPv3 as the version, the additional fields described in Table 5 become available.

In the User Defined Properties tab, you can add properties not directly supported by the NorthStar UI.

Click Submit to complete the device addition. The new device appears in the device list.

Modify Device

The Modify button opens the Modify Device(s) window, which has the same fields as the Add New Device window. Edit the fields you want to change and click Submit. Click Save Changes to complete the modification. You can wait until you have completed all your device modifications to click Save Changes, which will have become active to flag that there are unsaved changes.

To modify one or more fields in the same way for multiple devices, Ctrl-click or Shift-click to select the devices in the device list and click Modify. On the resulting Modify Device(s) window, you can make changes that affect all the selected devices.

Delete Device

To delete a device, select the device row in the Device List and click Delete. A confirmation window is displayed as shown in Figure 8.

Click Yes to complete the deletion.

Figure 8: Delete Device Confirmation Window

Device Grouping Options

With device grouping, you can group devices in ways that are independent of topological groups. Since NETCONF task collection supports collection by device profile group, one way to use this functionality is to manage NETCONF sub-collection tasks by group.

When you click the down arrow beside the Device Grouping icon, the two options displayed are:

• Toggle Device Grouping

• Manage Device Grouping

Select Toggle Device Grouping to either display the devices in the Device List according to their assigned groups, or not. Figure 9 shows an example of a device list in which device grouping is toggled on.

Figure 9: Device List Displayed by Group

To return to the ungrouped device list, select Disable Grouping. To display just the group names without displaying the group members, select Collapse All. To return to the grouped display in which the group members are also shown, select Expand All.

Select Manage Device Grouping to open the Manage Device Groups window as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Manage Device Groups Window

Existing groups are listed on the left side. Click the name of an existing group to display its members in the “Devices in the group” list on the right. All other devices are listed in the “Select device(s) from” list where you can select devices to add.

To delete a group, click the name of an existing group on the left and click Delete Group(s) at the bottom. This action removes the group assignment from the member devices. Groups with no members are automatically deleted.

To create a new group and add devices to it, type the group name at the top and click the New Group check box. All devices are then listed in the “Select device(s) from” list so you can choose the group members. Figure 11 shows an example. If you add devices that are already assigned to a group, the new assignment removes the previous assignment.

Figure 11: Manage Device Groups Window

Click Apply to save your work.

You can also assign a group to a device profile in the Add New Device or Modify Device(s) window (General tab). The Manage Device Groups window is particularly useful for making changes to multiple devices at once.