Entering IPv6 formatted IP Addresses in Performance Management Discovery Profiles

Products

• CA Infrastructure Management
• CA Infrastructure Management
• CA Performance Management - Usage and Administration
• CA Performance Management - Data Polling

Issue/Introduction

How can IPv6 formatted IP Addresses be used for device Discovery and Polling in Performance Management?

More environments are beginning to make regular use of IPv6 addresses over the traditional and well known IPv4 formatted addresses.

Environment

All supported CA Performance Management releases

Resolution

When a Discovery Profile is set up, the code will check to see if the IP is a valid IPv4 or IPv6 address, or valid IPv4 range. If not, we will check to see if it meets hostname naming convention requirements.

Using a sample made up IPv6 address as follows: ae80::9ec6:56ff:fa8a:dd48

The value we'd enter in the IP list is: ae80::9ec6:56ff:fa8a:dd48

Important Details:

1. Do not enter or include any trailing symbols or digits, such as %26 or /64, when entering the address in the Discovery Profile. They should be left off.
2. Only one section with dual colons "::" are permitted.
3. Our code will check the IP entered. If it starts with a number we treat it as an IP address. If it starts with a letter, we treat it as a hostname. To address that we allow an IPv6 address to be entered with the letters a, b, c, d, e or f as the leading character to conform with IPv6 standards.
4. Per the documentation, IPv6 based address ranges are not permitted. They must be entered individually in the UI. It does allow for import of a list if IPv6 formatted addresses. See the Discovery Profiles Documentation for more information.

Using the above example IPv6 address, we are able to enter the following into the IP Address List for a Discovery Profile.
 

ae80::9ec6:56ff:fa8a:dd48
be80::9ec6:56ff:fa8a:dd48
ce80::9ec6:56ff:fa8a:dd48
de80::9ec6:56ff:fa8a:dd48
ee80::9ec6:56ff:fa8a:dd48
fe80::9ec6:56ff:fa8a:dd48

Capitalization didn't matter to the UI, but syntax on the network may matter.

It will not allow entry of an IPv6 formatted address that contains a leading character other than the letters a, b, c, d, e or f. When testing with a leading character "g" for example, it was rejected from entry and the UI displayed a red bar around the IP Address entry field.

Additional Information

Behind the scenes, when entering an IP Address into a Discovery Profile, both the Performance Center and Data Aggregator code performs the following checks:
1. Construct an IPAddress object. If it's able to do that successfully, meaning it's a valid IPv4/v6 address, it allows it to be added to the list of devices for pending Discovery.
2. If not able to construct a valid IPAddress in step #1, check if it's an IPRange. If it is a valid IPv4 range it will allow it to be added to the list of devices for pending Discovery.
3. If not able to construct a valid IPAddress in step #1, or confirm a valid IPv4 IPRange was entered in step #2, check if it's a valid hostname that meets the criteria for hostname. If it is a valid hostname, it will allow it to be added to the list of devices for pending Discovery.
4. If none of those prove valid, it will not allow the value into the list of devices for pending Discovery. It will instead show a red border around the IP/Hostname entry field to indicate a bad entry error.