Working with credentials

To identify, monitor, and perform actions on devices, WhatsUp Gold uses one or more credential sets per device.

Tips for applying credentials.
Creating credentials.
Assigning credentials.

You can apply credentials to a devices at discovery or rescan time, as part of credential maintenance, and as new or additional monitors require them.

Credentials are needed for network discovery.
Each credential type you apply can affect the richness of information returned for discovering, monitoring, and reporting purposes.
Richer credential sets provide a better picture of connectivity, including virtual hosts and hypervisors, guest VMs, VLANs, and so on.
For core WhatsUp Gold performance monitors (CPU utilization, Memory Utilization) you need at least SNMP or Windows credentials during network discovery.

Credential Types (Built into WhatsUp Gold)

Credentials Library provides the following credential types:

Network Management. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv1, SNMPv2, SNMPv3).

System Attributes and Instrumentation. Windows, VMware, SSH (typically used for Linux and UNIX).

Remote Execution. Secure Shell client (SSH), Telnet client.

Storage Device Management. Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S).

Cloud. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure (Tenant and Enterprise).

Wireless. Meraki Cloud.

Applications/APIs. ADO, JMX, REST API.

Hardware. Redfish.

Tip: Most active monitors that include scripting (PowerShell, for example) have the ability to apply credential sets as part of remote processing (before and during the active session).

Credential Type	Description	Typical Use
WMI (Windows)	Windows user credentials. It is best practice to scope these according to the principal of least privilege.	Provides WhatsUp Gold Performance monitors WMI object access. For Windows OS based devices, which can provide different information than SNMP. Note: Add WMI credentials directly to Hyper-V hosts for Disk Utilization metrics.
SSH, Telnet (UNIX, Linux)	Remote commands, scripts, and management.	Connect WhatsUp Gold to devices running an SSH Server. Access filesystem partition information on Linux, UNIX devices if not available by way of SNMP. Action scripts/Shell Scripts.
Telnet (UNIX, Linux)	Remote commands, scripts, and management.	Connect WhatsUp Gold to devices running a Telnet Server. Shell access.
VMware	VM platform attributes, status, and logs.	Needed to connect to vCenter server. Add to vCenter server. Enables VM and virtual server information to be gathered by way of VMware services.

Credential Type	Description	Typical Use
SSH	Remote commands, scripts, and management.	Connect WhatsUp Gold to devices running an SSH Server. Access filesystem partition information on Linux, UNIX devices if not available by way of SNMP. Linux/UNIX/router switch CLI. Action scripts/shell scripts (SSH action, for example).
Telnet	Remote commands, scripts, and management.	Connect WhatsUp Gold to devices running a Telnet Server. Shell access. Linux/UNIX/router switch CLI.