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Dynamic network topology mapping - L2 and L3

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Hamish

28 Jul 2014 28 Jul '14

5:35 a.m.

Hello there, Does anyone out there have a recommendation for a good network topology mapping application ? I want to see a live layer 2 and 3 topology diagrams - routing and vlans etc. juniper space used to have such a plugin but they killed it :( the only other mention of an app capable of such a thing that I have heard of is solar winds . Network Topology Mapper Any advice or experience with such an app would be much appreciated. cheers Hamish

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Joel Wirāmu Pauling

28 Jul 28 Jul

6:14 a.m.

I have used graphviz and .dot files manually populated from CSV exports in the past with pretty good results. https://osl.uoregon.edu/redmine/projects/netdot/wiki , http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation/dotguide.pdf All the other approaches I have used/played with required fairly significant investment into ensuring consistency in SNMP collection, MIB availability and/or entering things into product X's system (Caradin,Netcracker,amdocs). netdot is good - but again requires inventory population via either well structured SNMP implementation accross devices or manual population https://osl.uoregon.edu/redmine/projects/netdot/wiki The upshot of netdot and the first approach is Free. The other solutions mentioned are Megabucks and Enterprisey/Carrier market targeted. -Joel On 29 July 2014 10:35, Hamish wrote:

Hello there,

Does anyone out there have a recommendation for a good network topology mapping application ?

I want to see a live layer 2 and 3 topology diagrams - routing and vlans etc.

juniper space used to have such a plugin but they killed it :(

the only other mention of an app capable of such a thing that I have heard of is solar winds .

Network Topology Mapper

Any advice or experience with such an app would be much appreciated.

cheers

Hamish

_______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog

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Michael Fincham

6:18 a.m.

On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:14:00 +1200, Joel Wirāmu Pauling wrote:

I have used graphviz and .dot files manually populated from CSV exports in the past with pretty good results. https://osl.uoregon.edu/redmine/projects/netdot/wiki , http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation/dotguide.pdf

I had a go at mashing up netdot w/ some graphs generated by parsing the XML versions of Juniper configs pulled by RANCID. It did not go especially well :) I got the impression netdot was better suited to mapping fairly small networks. Mapping our "whole" network made a huge output with low readability. -- Michael

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Joel Wirāmu Pauling

6:25 a.m.

I've mapped the entire L1 Physical Ethernet aggregation network for Telecom at one stage with graphviz and .dot (which netdot makes use of extensively). The trick is formatting Edge and Node Labels in a logical fashion and using a render mode and viewer that is appropriate to the size of the Directed Graph. I found using Hover I don't realistically think that any automatic tool is going to manage fully readable/usable output beyond a few dozen nodes without manual tweaking of label offsets etc. Like I said I ended up crafting .dot files through a few bash/gawk scripts out of CSV exports which allowed me to create rules as required for pretty and readable graphviz / .dot files. -Joel On 29 July 2014 11:18, Michael Fincham wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:14:00 +1200, Joel Wirāmu Pauling wrote:

...
I have used graphviz and .dot files manually populated from CSV exports in the past with pretty good results. https://osl.uoregon.edu/redmine/projects/netdot/wiki , http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation/dotguide.pdf

I had a go at mashing up netdot w/ some graphs generated by parsing the XML versions of Juniper configs pulled by RANCID. It did not go especially well :)

I got the impression netdot was better suited to mapping fairly small networks. Mapping our "whole" network made a huge output with low readability.

-- Michael

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Joe Abley

31 Jul 31 Jul

12:28 a.m.

On 28 Jul 2014, at 19:18, Michael Fincham wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 11:14:00 +1200, Joel Wirāmu Pauling wrote:

...
I have used graphviz and .dot files manually populated from CSV exports in the past with pretty good results. https://osl.uoregon.edu/redmine/projects/netdot/wiki , http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation/dotguide.pdf

I had a go at mashing up netdot w/ some graphs generated by parsing the XML versions of Juniper configs pulled by RANCID. It did not go especially well :)

I got the impression netdot was better suited to mapping fairly small networks. Mapping our "whole" network made a huge output with low readability.

Late to this party (sorry) but long ago I hacked together scripts that consumed JUNOS and IOS configs from a rancid repository and made (somewhat!) interactive maps with them that you could navigate using a browser. It scaled well enough to handle AS6461 which at the time was a flat layer-3 network that extended from Asia through North America to Europe (so, not a trivially small number of nodes). Miraculously, some presentation materials and even code from 2002 survive. Note that I did say 2002, so be gentle. https://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog26/presentations/stephen.pdf ftp://ftp.isc.org/isc/toolmakers/ Joe

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Charlie Bailey

2:14 a.m.

Cariden is brilliant but a significant investment. I've had some success with Network Weathermap populated through a bunch of script generated data fiiles. Have a look at the network weathermap on the REANNZ website (not mine but the same tool). Sent from my iPhone

On 29/07/2014, at 11:14, Joel Wirāmu Pauling wrote:

I have used graphviz and .dot files manually populated from CSV exports in the past with pretty good results. https://osl.uoregon.edu/redmine/projects/netdot/wiki , http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation/dotguide.pdf

All the other approaches I have used/played with required fairly significant investment into ensuring consistency in SNMP collection, MIB availability and/or entering things into product X's system (Caradin,Netcracker,amdocs).

netdot is good - but again requires inventory population via either well structured SNMP implementation accross devices or manual population https://osl.uoregon.edu/redmine/projects/netdot/wiki

The upshot of netdot and the first approach is Free. The other solutions mentioned are Megabucks and Enterprisey/Carrier market targeted.

-Joel

...
On 29 July 2014 10:35, Hamish wrote: Hello there,

Does anyone out there have a recommendation for a good network topology mapping application ?

I want to see a live layer 2 and 3 topology diagrams - routing and vlans etc.

juniper space used to have such a plugin but they killed it :(

the only other mention of an app capable of such a thing that I have heard of is solar winds .

Network Topology Mapper

Any advice or experience with such an app would be much appreciated.

cheers

Hamish

_______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog

NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog

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Jonathan Brewer

28 Jul 28 Jul

7:30 a.m.

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 10:35 AM, Hamish wrote:

Hello there,

Does anyone out there have a recommendation for a good network topology mapping application ?

the only other mention of an app capable of such a thing that I have heard of is solar winds .

SolarWinds has been around for a long time (15 years?) and have an excellent product if you have the $$.

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Sean Muller

7:34 a.m.

Look at netbrain or Visionael, both do dynamic network discovery and generate maps. http://www.netbraintech.com/ http://www.visionael.com/ Regards, Sean Muller Network Architect Network Services NZ Strategic Outsourcing Delivery IBM Global Technolgy Services Phone: 64-4-576-5903 | Mobile: 64-21-222-6187 (Embedded image moved to file: E-mail: smuller(a)nz.ibm.com pic04673.gif)IBM 25 Victoria Street New Zealand From: Jonathan Brewer To: "nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz" Date: 29/07/2014 12:30 Subject: Re: [nznog] Dynamic network topology mapping - L2 and L3 Sent by: nznog-bounces(a)list.waikato.ac.nz On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 10:35 AM, Hamish wrote: Hello there, Does anyone out there have a recommendation for a good network topology mapping application ? the only other mention of an app capable of such a thing that I have heard of is solar winds . SolarWinds has been around for a long time (15 years?) and have an excellent product if you have the $$. _______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog

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Dean Pemberton

7:38 a.m.

I wrote some python to do this live using LLDP packets on an SDN controlled data plane. I have a feeling that's less than helpful to you though. =) Dean On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 10:35 AM, Hamish wrote:

Hello there,

Does anyone out there have a recommendation for a good network topology mapping application ?

I want to see a live layer 2 and 3 topology diagrams - routing and vlans etc.

juniper space used to have such a plugin but they killed it :(

the only other mention of an app capable of such a thing that I have heard of is solar winds .

Network Topology Mapper

Any advice or experience with such an app would be much appreciated.

cheers

Hamish

_______________________________________________ NZNOG mailing list NZNOG(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog

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participants (8)

Charlie Bailey
Dean Pemberton
Hamish
Joe Abley
Joel Wirāmu Pauling
Jonathan Brewer
Michael Fincham
Sean Muller