Smarts IP: How do I create user-defined connections?; Devices with user-defined connections are not connecting

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:


How do I create user defined connections in Smarts IP?

Devices with user-defined connections are not successfully connecting in Smarts IP
Cisco environment will not make connections between each other due to user configuration such as Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) being disabled on switch (IP) or VLANs not being enabled

Connections between devices are not made by Smarts IP if the connection was user-defined

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

User-defined connection is not properly configured.

Resolution

The following sections explain the configuration requirements for a user-defined connection entry in Smarts IP and the steps required to configure and implement a user-defined connection.

Smarts IP connection entry configuration requirements
A connection defined by a user in Smarts IP must contain the four fields separated by pipe character ( | ) as in the following example:

10.0.0.10|2\1|10.0.0.9|3\5|

•  Field 1: The first field is used to configure the local network device. You can specify either a name or an IP address. The value in this field in the above example is the IP address 10.0.0.1
   
• Field 2: The second field is used to configure the network adapters on the local device. The value in this field can be the ifIndex, ifDescr or ifName value as defined in MIB2. It can also be n\m or n.m where n is the module number and m is the port number. The value in this field in the above example is 2\1 (module #2\port #1).
   
• Field 3: The third field is used to configure the remote network device. You can specify either a name or an IP address. The value in this field in the above example is the IP address 10.0.0.9.
   
• Field 4: The fourth field is used to configure the network adapters on the remote device. The value in this field can be the ifName, ifDescr or ifIndex value as defined in MIB2. It can also be n\m or n.m where n is the module number and m is the port number. The value in this field in the above example is 3\5 (module #3\port #5)

Steps to configure and implement a Smarts IP connection entry
To configure a Smarts IP connection entry, do the following:

1. Open the user-defined-connections.conf configuration file for editing using sm_edit as follows: 
   
   <Basedir>IP/smarts/bin ./sm_edit conf/discovery/user-defined-connections.conf
   
    
2. Insert connection entry that meets the configuration requirements specified in the preceding example. 
   
   Example
   10.0.0.10|2\1|10.0.0.9|3\5|
   
    
3. Rediscover the device in Smarts IP and confirm that the connection is made.