ServiceNav offers a module in the tool to perform a census of its computer park.
It can be used for visit general information about the machines (IP address, type, name, services in operation, active supervision protocol, etc.), or to put equipment under supervision.
The interest is to discover automatically the equipment in its network in order to accelerate the implementation of supervision.
The services discovered are disk partitions and network ports equipment.
How the census module works
The census incorporates in its main algorithm the exploitation of raw data returned by open-source tools and network discovery protocols (NMAP, SNMP, WMI...).
The diagram below shows the sequence of operations performed for each IP address in the discovery target range.
Prerequisites for use :
The following 2 supervision accounts must be configured:
- Windows Admin (to allow reading of WMI counters)
- SNMP and SNMPv3 Community
Use Case - Conduct a census
Here we will identify a fixed station and put it in supervision with the automatically discovered services.
The complete documentation is available here => https://coservit.com/servicenav/fr/documentation/realiser-un-recensement/
A discovery is executed from the button Discover.
Simply enter the address range or list the addresses to be surveyed, separating them with a comma.
Note: It is not possible to use DNS names.
The Account tab allows you to check the prerequisites on the Windows Admin and SNMP accounts.
By default they are inherited from the site's supervision accounts and it is possible to override them during the census.
Click on Click Apply to start the census. From then on, a progress bar appears. It is automatically refreshed every 15 seconds. This allows you to evaluate the progress of the census.
Census result
The results table is the central element of the discovery screen. It allows visibility of the data retrieved by the network discovery.
In the displayed result, we can see the status of the 3 tested protocols
ping The supervision box is able to ping the equipment
snmp The supervision box can query the equipment's mib.
wmi : The supervision box can make a wmi connection to Windows servers.
By default, partitions are discovered by the SNMP protocol as well as network ports.
Example:
The census allows to add automatically checkpoints on the equipments for which SNMP is working.
This is very interesting especially when monitoring a switch that has many network interfaces.
If the SNMP protocol is in CRITICAL status (Red) then no service is discovered.
It is good practice to understand why the status is not OK before putting the equipment under supervision.
Once the census is completed, it is possible to put the equipment under supervision.
To do this, select the equipment and click on the button
If no template is applied when setting up supervision and the checkbox "Add automatically discovered services" is checked then partitions and interfaces will be added automatically.
Note: In some situations the discovery of ports and partitions is not used, especially if the devices always have the same configuration. It is then possible to create templates that will be applied to the devices without putting the automatically discovered elements under supervision.
Selection rules according to equipment category
When adding a device in supervision (unitary or massive), some network interfaces and partitions are selected by default, and put in supervision. The associated selection rule depends on the equipment categoryand is set as follows:
| Category equipment | Selected network interfaces | Selected Disc Scores |
| Other | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Server | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Printer | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Router | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Switch | Status UP + IP empty or different from 127.0.0.1 | All |
| UPS | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Camera | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Telephone | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Windows Server | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Linux server | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Windows Agent Server | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| SAN / NAS | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Monitoring Box | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Workstation | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| WIFI terminal | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Management Card | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
| Infrastructure | Status UP + has an IP (different from 127.0.0.1) | All |
Result in technical operation
When the equipment is added in supervision the result is as follows:
Use Case - Conduct a census following a change in infrastructure
When a change is made to any of the equipment already supervisedIn the technical evaluation, some control points are not visible or no longer function.
This can be the addition of a network card, a disk or a partition.
Example of a scenario I am moving a VM from one ESX to another during maintenance.
The VM present in the supervision indicates me an alert or an unknown state on its network card.
When I look at the settings of the "Network Traffic VMware Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet1" service, the interface number is #27
As I don't know the interface number assigned following the move of my VM, I will use the census module to search for this number.
So I go to the census module and I census my machine again (even if it is already in supervision)
I see the number to change. In this case, I have to replace interface 27 by interface 12 in the service settings.
My control is back on line.
