Common Questions About CWSI/Campus Manager

Network Topology Map Discovery

Document ID: 7989

Questions
Introduction
During the installation of CWSI on my machine, a prompt for a "seed device" appears.
What is a seed device, and what is the best choice to make?
Why do I see several icons with red Xs all over the Campus map?
How do I change the discovery parameters after installation of the product?
How do I delete devices from the CWSI Campus topology map?
What additional information do I need to know about Campus Manager 3.0 network
topology map discovery?
Related Information

Introduction
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.

Q. During the installation of CWSI on my machine, a prompt for a "seed

device" appears. What is a seed device, and what is the best choice to
make?
A. The seed device is the start point from which the CWSI Campus program discovers the
network. From this device, the Campus program discovers network neighbors with the Cisco
Discovery Protocol (CDP) and Integrated Logical Management Interface (ILMI). These are
some guidelines to select the seed device:

♦ The seed device must be a Cisco device.

♦ The seed device should be a core switch and not a router. Although you can specify
a router IP address, you can experience problems with network discovery. For
example, proper discovery can fail to occur for some portions. Good seed devices to
use include the Cisco Catalyst 5000s, Catalyst 5500s, and Catalyst 8510s. If you must
use a router as the seed device, be sure to choose the Jump Router Boundaries option.

Note: See the question How do I change the discovery parameters after installation of
the product? for more information on the Jump Router Boundaries option.
♦ When you select a core switch as the seed device, be sure to specify the IP address
of the Supervisor Engine and not the IP address of the Route Switch Module
(RSM).
 ♦ If your network has ATM devices, use as the seed device a Cisco LightStream 1010
switch or any edge device that supports ILMI in ATM MIBs.
♦ Be sure that you can ping the device from the workstation on which CWSI Campus
runs.
♦ Be sure that the device is reachable through Simple Network Management Protocol
(SNMP). This document provides more information:

◊ How to Configure SNMP Community Strings

♦ Be sure that all devices have unique host names . CWSI Campus is not able to parse
the CDP table when device host names are the same. This inability is especially true
for Catalyst 2900−type devices.
♦ Be sure to enable CDP on all link interfaces of the seed device. This document
provides more information:

◊ Configuring Cisco Discovery Protocol on Cisco Routers and Switches

Running Cisco IOS

Q. Why do I see several icons with red Xs all over the Campus map?
A. Red−X icons on the CWSI Campus map simply mean that the application was unable to
communicate with the device with use of Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
There are a variety of reasons for the failure. The most common reasons are:

♦ The SNMP community strings are wrong.

If the SNMP community strings do not match between the Campus program and the
end device, a red−X icon appears on the maps. To modify the community strings in
the Campus program, choose Edit > SNMP Communities. Make the changes
necessary to ensure that the Read−Only and Read−Write community strings match
the community strings that you have configured on the end device. Use the window
in the next list item as an example.

Note: Community strings should not contain special characters such as spaces,
underscores, backslashes, and asterisks.
♦ The SNMP Timeouts are too short.

On some networks, certain devices can be slow to respond to SNMP requests. This
behavior is especially prevalent with Cisco Catalyst 5000, 5500, and 8510 devices.
To overcome this problem, simply increase the SNMP Timeout value to 30 or 60
seconds. Once you have made the change, click Save to permanently save the new
options.

Note: The maximum SNMP Timeout value is 60.

 ♦ The SNMP setup is incorrect on network devices.

Refer to this document to ensure that you have properly configured SNMP on
network devices:

◊ How to Configure SNMP Community Strings

Q. How do I change the discovery parameters after installation of the

product?
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.

Q. How do I delete devices from the CWSI Campus topology map?

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.

Q. What additional information do I need to know about Campus

Manager 3.0 network topology map discovery?
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 devicesYou 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 boundariesThis 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 lookupDisable this option if you do not use Domain Name System
(DNS) in your network.
♦ filteringThis limits discovery, with IP addresses or VTP domains as a basis.

Related Information
• CiscoWorks Campus Manager Tech Notes
• Technical Support − Cisco Systems

Contacts & Feedback | Help | Site Map

© 2009 − 2010 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Statement | Cookie Policy | Trademarks of
Cisco Systems, Inc.

Updated: Jan 17, 2006 Document ID: 7989