Discovery Console - Discovery Settings

How to get here

Before you can run a discovery scan on your network, you need to configure the discovery settings. The Discovery Settings are located in the Settings column on the left side of the Discovery Console. You can also use the WhatsUp Gold Welcome Center Setup Assistant to step through the discovery setting options.

After running a discovery, use the following sections of the Discovery Console to manage and view discoveries:

• Devices Discovered
• Progress Summary tab
• Device Information tab
• Scheduled Discoveries tab
• Saved Results tab

Select Discovery Settings

WhatsUp Gold can use several different methods to scan your network. Select the scan type that best fits your network topology.

Scan Settings

Select your scan type preference to discover network devices.

• SNMP Smart Scan. This scan type uses an SNMP enabled router to identify the devices in a network and also identifies sub-networks within the network.
  • Seed Addresses. Enter the IP addresses that indicate where you want to start the network discovery scan. The discovery engine reads SNMP data from these devices and continues to scan the network for additional devices based on the SNMP responses from the seed devices.
    • Add. Click to enter a new seed address for the discovery scan.
    • Edit. Select a seed address to change.
    • Remove. Select a seed address to delete.
  • Scan Depth. Enter an integer value that defines how deep discovery should scan to find network devices. This sets the levels of your network that you want to scan. With a value of 1, the scan discovers and maps your top-level network and any sub-networks of that top-level. To discover a sub-network within that sub-network, you must enter a scan depth of 2 or greater. The default value of 2 means that the scan discovers and maps the top-level network and two sub-network levels.
• IP Range Scan. Enter the IP range that defines the addresses to include in the network scan. For example, Start Address 10.0.0.1 and End Address 10.0.0.100.
• Hosts File Scan. Click Load/Reload (console) or Upload (web interface) to browse to the Hosts file location. Discovery scans and imports the IP addresses mapped to host names listed in the Hosts text file. You can also select other text files that include a list of IP address.

  Important: If you update the Hosts text file, you must click Load/Reload (console) or Upload (web interface) to update the host file information. If you do not, the Hosts file changes will not be updated for new Hosts File Scans.

Credentials

The SNMP, WMI, and VMware credentials defined in the Credentials Library are listed as credential options for the discovery scan. Select the credential(s) to use for the discovery scan. If the credentials you want to use for discovery are not available, click Credentials Library to add new credentials. For more information, see the Credentials Library help.

Note: Currently, WhatsUp Gold does not use SSH or Telnet credentials to discover devices.

Scan Method (Ping)

• Primary Scan Method. Select Ping or Advanced.
  • Ping. Uses a standard ICMP ping command to scan for network devices.
    • Ping Timeout (seconds). Enter the time, in seconds, for a device to respond to a ping scan. If it does not respond to the scan within this time, the scan continues on to the next IP address. The default is 2 seconds.
    • Ping Retries. Enter the number of times to attempt to ping a device before continuing on to the next device. The default is 1 retry.
  • Advanced. Uses TCP port checks to scan on networks where ICMP pings are disabled. This scan attempts to connect on an IP address's specific TCP ports. If the connection is successful, the device at that IP address is discovered.

Scan Advanced Settings

• SNMP Timeout (seconds). Enter the time, in seconds, for an SNMP device to respond. If it does not respond to the scan within this time, the scan continues on to the next IP address. The default is 2 seconds.
• SNMP Retries. Enter the number of times to try to attempt to discover a device at a given IP address before continuing on to the next device.
• WMI Timeout (seconds). Enter the time, in seconds, for a WMI device to respond. If it does not respond to the scan within this time, the scan continues on to the next IP address. The default is 10 seconds.
• Resolve host names. Select this option to have WhatsUp Gold attempt to populate the list of discovered devices with host names. If the Use SNMP SysName to name devices option is selected (see below), it is used first to identify device names. If SNMP information is not available, the Resolve host names option is used to identify device names (if the option is selected).
• Use SNMP SysName to name devices. Select this option to discover each device name by accessing the device SNMP SysName. This method is used first to identify device names. If not available, the Resolve host names option is used to identify device name (if the option is selected).
• Automatically scan virtual machine devices after scanning the VMware server hosting them. Select this option to automatically scan virtual machine devices after WhatsUp Gold detects a VMware server.

  Note: In order for WhatsUp Gold to successfully scan a virtual machine device, VMware Tools must be installed on the device.

Start a discovery session. Click to start a new network discovery based on the discovery settings above.