Information on Switch Management: Deployment Solution Switch Add-On
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Information on Switch Management: Deployment Solution Switch Add-On

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Article ID: 272983

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Updated On:

Products

Ghost Solution Suite Deployment Solution

Issue/Introduction

Under the Ghost Solution Suite Console > Tools > Legacy Tools, there is an option called "Switch Management"

What information is available for it?

Environment

GSS 3.3
DS 6.8-6.9

Resolution

 This legacy tool is no longer developed or maintained. It was used in the earlier versions of Ghost Solution and Deployment Solution 6.8 and 6.9.

This is the available documentation on this feature.

Managing Switches

To administer roles and configurations for network servers, it is necessary to discover and modify the network switch settings for the connected network servers. Deployment Solution provides the Switch Add-On program to discover and manage Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN) settings on a LAN switch or to run commands from the command-line. This utility allows you to directly discover and provision the port settings of a LAN switch.

To open the Switch Management tool under the Ghost Solution Suite Console (GSS Console), click Tools > Legacy Tools > Switch Management. The Deployment Solution Switch Add-On utility tool appears.
Network switches will be identified in the left pane. Click the star icon to Add New Switches.


Switch Management Features

Typically, a VLAN setting is port based — it is a LAN switch port that can be configured as a member of a specific VLAN. As such, client and server computers connected to that LAN switch port are members of the VLAN and can communicate with other member client and server computers of that VLAN. By changing the VLAN setting of a switch port, you can move client and server computers between logical VLAN groupings without actually changing the physical network infrastructure.

Often, when modifying server roles or configurations, it will be necessary for you to change the grouping or VLAN for the server’s network. This can be accomplished by changing the VLAN setting on the switch port that the server is connected to.

The Deployment Solution Switch Add-On allows you to perform the following functions:

  • Discover the LAN switch MIB II system information (command-line and GUI)
  • Discover the switch ports of a LAN switch (command line and GUI)
  • Discover the VLAN setting for each switch port (command line and GUI)
  • Modify the VLAN setting of a switch port (command line and GUI)
  • Assign physical connectivity of a workstation/server to a switch port (GUI)

About Switch Add-On for Deployment Solution

Switch Add-On will assume port-based VLANs (not MAC-based VLANs), managing only VLANs for a specified port setting on the switch. For this release, it will assume only one VLAN per port. (Switch Add-On will not perform any type of VLAN trunking management in its initial release.) Deployment Solution Switch Add-On will only support VLAN management based on the list of supported devices in "LAN Switch Support List" section below.

Deployment Solution Switch Add-On will only support SNMP v1. You will need the SNMP read community name to discover a LAN switch (along with its port/VLAN mappings) and the SNMP write community name to manage the port/VLAN settings.

All discovered switch information will be kept in a local database file (SwitchMngtDb.txt). To ease installation and support, this file will be text based and be located in the directory from which the Deployment Solution Switch Add-On applications are executed.

Notes:

  • If a LAN switch supports the 802.1Q VLAN standard, Deployment Solution Switch Add-On will only provide PVID management on a port.
  • Since most vendors do not support VLAN Add/Edit/Delete through SNMP, Deployment Solution Switch Add-On will not provide these features.
  • All devices that are to be managed must support SNMP v1.

 

LAN Switch Support List

Deployment Solution Switch Add-On supports these specific vendors with the following LAN switches:

  • Cisco Catalyst 1900/2820 series switches
    Models: All models (OS Versions 8.XX and up - Enterprise Edition)
  • Cisco Catalyst 2900 series switches
    Models: WS-C2900, WS-C2926 (OS versions 3.1 and later)
    Models: WS-C2948G, WS-C2980G and WS-C2980GA (All operating system versions)
  • Cisco Catalyst 2900 XL / 2900 XL LRE series switches
    Models: All models (IOS versions 11.2(8) SA3 and later)
  • Cisco Catalyst 3500 XL series switches
    Models: All models (IOS versions 12.0(5) XP and later)
  • Cisco Catalyst 4000 series switches
    Models: WS-C4003, WS-C4006, WS-C4912G (All operating system versions)
  • Cisco Catalyst 5000 series switches
    Models: WS-C5000, WS-C5002, WS-C5500, WS-C5505, WS-C5509, WS-C5509E (OS versions 3.1 and up)
  • Cisco Catalyst 6000 series switches
    Models: WS-C6006, WS-C6009, WS-C6506, WS-C6509, WS-C6509NEB, WS-C6513 (All OS/IOS versions)
  • HP
    Models: BL eClass Interconnect Switch (802.1Q PVID management only)
  • Dell
    Models: PowerEdge 1655MC Integrated Switch (802.1Q PVID management only)


Using Deployment Solution Switch Add-On

The Deployment Solution Switch Add-On program is a stand-alone application that displays a graphical view of the all switches that have been discovered along with their respective switch ports.

The following are port attributes appearing in the Details pane of the program:

Switch The switch to which the port belongs

Port The name of the port (vendor-specific port names will be shown when available)

Description The description of the switch port

VLAN The VLAN assignment for the switch port

Connectivity Any user assigned mapping of clients or servers to the switch port

By selecting a device in the tree view pane, the switch port display is updated to show its respective ports. By selecting Network in the tree view, all switch ports that have been discovered will be shown in the switch port view. You can sort on attributes by selecting the appropriate column.

 

Adding a Switch Device

To add a switch to the Deployment Database

  1. Press the Add icon on the toolbar

Or, right-click Network in the tree view.

  1. From the pop up menu that opens, click Add Device.

Note:
When the device is available and the SNMP communities are correct, the application reads the MIB II system information from the device and add the device to the tree view. If the device is not available, an error message appears.

 

Discovering a Device

Once a device has been added to the database, all properties for that device can be discovered. By selecting the device in the tree view and right clicking, the following menu appears:

Click Discover Device to discover all the switch device properties and store these values in the Deployment Database. Once the discovery process is complete, the switch ports for that device will be seen in the port view.

 

Deleting a Device

A device can be deleted in two ways:

  1. Press the Delete icon on the toolbar:  
    Or, right-click and select Delete.

 

Viewing and Setting Device Properties

Select and view Properties for a switch device by right-clicking its name in the tree view. The system information for the selected device appears. This dialog will allow you to make any necessary modifications to the SNMP read and SNMP write community strings (passwords).


Setting the VLAN for a Switch Port

To set a switch port to a specific VLAN, right-click on a switch port in the switch port view and click Click Set VLAN to view all available VLANs on the switch. Select a VLAN from the list.

The Deployment Solution Switch Add-On application will then use the supplied SNMP community strings (passwords) and attempt to change the VLAN setting on the port. If successful, the VLAN column will be updated.

Note:
It is possible to select more than one port in the port view and assign all selected ports to a particular VLAN in one operation. However, due to the number of operations required to change VLANs on some switching devices, this operation can be time consuming.

 

Assigning Connectivity to a Switch Port

From the switch port view, right-click any switch port and click Assign/View Connectivity to determine what client or server computers are connected to a particular switch port. This dialog appears:

The Assign/View Connectivity dialog shows all visible devices, including the MAC addresses that are being forwarded by the switch. It also shows any previous connectivity mapping, such as an X in the Connected column). You can add a hostname to a specific MAC address by right-clicking the appropriate MAC address. A menu appears. Click Add/Edit Host Info to enter the hostname on the dialog.

Note:
If the IP address and Hostname columns are blank for a MAC address, the application does not have enough information about the global network to display an IP Address/ Hostname binding to that MAC address.

You can assign connectivity to a particular switch device by selecting the device (or MAC address) in the list and clicking Assign Connectivity to Port. This will mark the MAC address as connected to this port. You can remove connectivity by selecting the MAC address you want to remove from connectivity and clicking Remove Connectivity from Port. When the dialog is closed, the client and server computers can be seen in the Connectivity column of the switch port view.

Command-line Parameters

The following command line parameters can be supplied to the Deployment Solution Switch Add-On program to launch the program with the appropriate reference:


-d=<switch IP address>: By supplying the IP address of the switch, the Switch AddOn program will launch and automatically select the supplied device in the tree view (thereby, showing all of its ports in the port view).

-e=<end node MAC address>: By supplying the MAC address of a client or server computer, the Switch Add-On program will launch and automatically select the switch and port that the client or server computer is connected to (if the connectivity has been previously assigned).


GUI Tools

The Switch Management Console includes a Tools menu, providing a Ping IP Range command to assist in "pinging" a specified IP range in order to generate traffic to a range of devices that might otherwise be inactive. From this dialog you can specify the starting and ending IP addresses to ping. Success or failure messages will appear in the list.

The Ping IP Range tool can be used to lookup the MAC address of the device being pinged. To be successful, SNMP must be enabled on the end device. The user can supply an SNMP Read community name to perform this operation. Otherwise, the user may clear the SNMP MAC Lookup box to ping only the end device.

Note:
If a device is inactive, the forwarding tables in the switch will not show the MAC address of the client or server computer. The Ping IP Range tool can be used to refresh the forwarding table in the switch.

 

Deployment Solution Switch Add-On (Command Line Options)

Along with the Deployment Solution Switch Add-On graphical program, a command-line interface is provided that will support the command line arguments listed below. This program file is named switchcfg.exe. It will be executed from the same directory that the database file (SwitchMngtDb.txt) is located.

Command-line Interface Parameters

By executing the switchcfg.exe without any arguments, you can see the usage of the CLI application as below.

The following is a description of the available command line arguments and how they are to be used:

-m=<mode> This indicates the mode of the operation to be performed. The two possible values are: 1) discover, and 2) set (as in set VLAN).

-d=<target ip> This indicates the switch (by IP address) to perform the operation on.

-r=<read community> The SNMP read community name (password) to use to discover the switch.

-w=<write community> The SNMP write community name (password) to use to perform any set operations on the indicated device.

-p=<port name> The name of the switch port the user is attempting to configure.

-v=<VLAN number> The VLAN number to set the switch port to (or).

-n-<VLAN name> The VLAN name to set the switch port to.

-e=<end node MAC address> The MAC address of the workstation/server you want to be put in a particular VLAN. In order for the utility to perform this operation correctly, the connectivity of the MAC address must have already been assigned using the GUI application. When using this option, the user must only supply the SNMP write community (password) and the VLAN (name or number) to put the workstation/server in. The CLI application will use its database to lookup the appropriate (bound) switch and switch port to provision.

-c=<SNMP retry count> The number of attempts that SNMP should attempt before giving up.

-t=<SNMP timeout> The SNMP timeout value in milliseconds.

Note:
Prior to executing any command to provision a switch, that switch MUST be discovered. Otherwise, the program will report errors.

 

Command-line Examples

Discover a Switch
switchcfg.exe -m=discover -d=<target IP> -r=<SNMP read>

Set VLAN on a Switch/Port
switchcfg.exe -m=set -d=<target IP> -w=<SNMP write> -p=<port name> -n=<VLAN name>

Set VLAN for a Workstation/Server (End Node)
switchcfg.exe -m=set -w=<SNMP write> -e=<MAC address> -n=<VLAN name>
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