Smarts IP: Discovery is not picking up Serial Interfaces on a few routers; Smarts is not discovering serial interfaces.

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:


Why is Smarts not discovering Serial Interfaces on specific routers?

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

The interfaces which have iftype 6 are created by default in Smarts. For few devices as per definitions in default tpmgr-param.conf file, other interfaces are also created. 

Ex: Generated the walk file for device. The device has interfaces with below iftype:
C:\xxx.mimic (15 hits)
                Line 865:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.1: 6
                Line 866:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.2: 6
                Line 867:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.3: 6
                Line 868:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.5: 1
                Line 869:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.6: 24
                Line 870:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.7: 18
                Line 871:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.8: 18
                Line 872:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.9: 18
                Line 873:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.10: 18
                Line 874:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.11: 23
                Line 875:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.12: 23
                Line 876:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.14: 108
                Line 877:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.15: 23
                Line 878:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.16: 23
                Line 879:  .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.3.17: 6

Only 4 interfaces with ifType 6 were getting discovered in Smarts.

Details of ifType OBJECT-TYPE for above:
other(1)
ethernet-csmacd(6)
ds1(18)
ppp(23),
softwareLoopback(24)
pppmultilinkbundle(108)

Refer https://www.iana.org/assignments/ianaiftype-mib/ianaiftype-mib for details on ifType and available options.

Resolution

If you want serial interfaces to be created in Smarts, you can make use of  IFTypePatternIFExt  flag in tpmgr-param.conf file. If any one of the patterns matches then the interface will be created.
Syntax:
IFTypePatternIFExt<SysOID of device> iftype
 
Follow the below steps in your environment.
1) Open the tpmgr-param.conf file using sm_edit in the IP installation where you have issue.
BASEDIR/IP/smarts/bin#./sm_edit ../conf/discovery/tpmgr-param.conf
 
2) Add the below entry at the end of the file. Save and Close the file.(Comments Optional)
Ex:
# Cisco C2900
# To create interfaces [customer wanted] which dont get created by default.
IFTypePatternIFExt.1.3.6.1.4.1.9.1.1046 1|24|18|23|108
 
Note: Above example is inline with example in "Cause" section of the article.

3) Reload the conf file on to the domain with below command.
BASEDIR/IP/smarts/bin#./sm_tpmgr -s <IP domain name> --load-conf=tpmgr-param.conf
 
4) Delete and add the device.

Additional Information

If an Interface does not have an underlying IP address, it will also not be discovered as an interface.