Getting Started with Autodiscovery
The following how-to runs down quickly enumerating network objects with Device42 Autodiscovery.
Getting Started with Device42 Videos
If you're new to Device42, begin with our getting started videos. In under 5 minutes, you'll learn how to set up your Remote Collector (RC), connect a Windows Discovery Service (WDS) instance to it, and run your first discovery job. Watch them now and you'll be an expert in no time!
Ready to learn more? If you prefer videos, visit our Device42 "How-To" playlist on YouTube or go to the How-To video section in the docs.
If you can't find the answer you're looking for, please email support@device42 and let us know. There's a good chance other people are wondering the same thing, and we'll be happy to create a new video.
Autodiscovery Account Notice
Please do not set up an autodiscovery scan using critical production account credentials. Please create a separate, dedicated account to use only for discovery.
Depending on permissions granted and your configured password policies, account lock-out could result in an otherwise completely avoidable outage. You, the customer, are responsible for any such behavior that might result.
Creating Subnets
Go to Resources > Networks > All Subnets and click Create on the top right corner.
The required fields are Network, Mask Bits, and Service Level. The other fields are optional. If left empty, Range Begin and Range End are automatically calculated based on network and bits.
If subnets have been pre-defined, all discovered IP addresses will be placed in their respective subnets. Otherwise, the IPs will end up in an "undefined" subnet.
Set Up Autodiscovery
Set Up WDS (Windows Discovery Service)
Now is a good time to set up a Remote Collector, as RCs are dedicated to discovery and can handle larger network ranges than your Main Appliance (MA).
If you’ll be discovering any Microsoft Windows OS-based servers or guests, go ahead and set up an instance of WDS. Note that your WDS instance can be connected to either your Main Appliance OR to a Remote Collector. If you do have an RC set up, it’s recommended to connect to WDS rather than connecting it to your MA.
Create Your First Discovery Job
If you're discovering any Microsoft- or Windows-based products, install the WDS first.
Start by discovering your network. Navigate to Discovery > SNMP and click Create to create a SNMP/Network discovery job. This will build out a base for the rest of your network. Then move on to vServer discovery, followed by Windows/Linux servers, etc.
See auto-discovery best practices for recommendations on the order in which to run initial discoveries. If you're familiar, jump right into SNMP/Network discovery.
The "unknown" Device Type
Any devices that are not virtual will come over as device type "unknown" initially. This is because the appliance has not been told whether the hardware belongs to the physical, blade, or other category.
The following device types have a hardware model. Each hardware model can be one of three types: regular, blade, or other.
- Regular: Represents physical devices
- Blade: Represents blade devices
- Other: Represents "other" devices like laptops, workstations, network printers, etc. that are not rack-mounted
Once you change a hardware type, all the corresponding devices that refer to that hardware and are of the type "unknown" will automatically be categorized accordingly.
The hardware bulk edit feature allows changing hardware properties in bulk for all undefined hardware types and it will automatically categorize all devices belonging to the category. See the bulk edit YouTube videos or bulk edit documentation for more information.
Also, once a hardware type is defined, any newly imported or discovered devices will go into the right category.
View Details of Discovered Items
To view the details of discovered items, navigate to that item's list page and select an item from the table.
For example, go to Resources > All Devices and click on a device name to view device details. Depending on the device and information available, fields like Hardware, Serial #, Total CPUs, RAM, OS, and IP Addresses can be populated.
