Prerequisites for Performing Network Discovery

Article
03/03/2016

Applies To: Windows Server Technical Preview

This topic provides prerequisite information for performing Network Discovery with Network Controller, including hardware and software configuration requirements, credential configuration, and Network Discovery configuration.

This topic contains the following sections.

Requirements for Performing Network Discovery
Configuring Network Discovery Credentials
Performing Network Discovery Configuration

Requirements for Performing Network Discovery

Following are the required steps before you can perform Network Discovery with Network Controller in Windows Server® 2016 Technical Preview.

You must install Network Controller on one node or multiple nodes and configure it according to the instructions in the topic Deploy Network Controller using Windows PowerShell. A Network Controller cluster node can be a computer or a virtual machine (VM).
All server computers and VMs that you want to discover on your network must be joined to an Active Directory domain.
All server computers and VMs that you want to discover on your network must have the Data Center Bridging feature installed. When you install Data Center Bridging, Link Layer Data Protocol (LLDP) is enabled, and LLDP is required for Network Discovery.

Note

To install the Data Center Bridging feature, open Windows PowerShell and run the following command: Install-WindowsFeature -Name Data-Center-Bridging –IncludeManagementTools
All network switches that you want to discover must be provisioned with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) read credentials.

Your switches must support standard SNMP Management Information Bases (MIBs) that are required for the discovery. Following are the required SNMP MIBs.

MIB	Table name	Purpose
RFC1213-MIB	System (“1.3.6.1.2.1.1”)	Retrieve switch system information: model, vendor, system OID, etc.
	ipRouteTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.4.21”)	Retrieve the switch route table
IF-MIB	ifTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2”)	Retrieve the interface table
IP-MIB	ipNetToMediaTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.4.22”)	Retrieve the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) table
	ipNetToPhysicalTable(“1.3.6.1.2.1.4.35”)	Retrieve the ARP table.
	ipAddrTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.4.20”)	Retrieve the IP address table.
IP-FORWARD-MIB	ipCidrRouteTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.4.24.4”)	Retrieve the CIDR table
Q-BRIDGE-MIB	dot1qTpFdbTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.17.7.1.2.2”)	Retrieve the MAC table
	dot1qVlanStaticTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.17.7.1.4.3”)	Retrieve the static VLAN table
	dot1qVlanCurrentTable(“1.3.6.1.2.1.17.7.1.4.2”)	Retrieve the current VLAN table
BRIDGE-MIB	dot1dTpFdbTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.17.4.3”)	Retrieve the MAC table.
LLDP-MIB	lldpLocPortTable (“1.0.8802.1.1.2.1.3.7”)	Retrieve the LLDP Local Port table
	lldpRemTable (“1.0.8802.1.1.2.1.4.1”)	Retrieve the LLDP Remote Port table
	lldpRemManAddrTable (“1.0.8802.1.1.2.1.4.2”)	Retrieve the remote management address table
	lldpLocalSystemData (“1.0.8802.1.1.2.1.3”)
Entity-MIB	entPhysicalTable(“1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.1.1.1”)	Retrieve the physical port information so that the ports can be associated with the VLANs retrieved in the current VLAN table
	entAliasMappingTable (“1.3.6.1.2.1.47.1.3.2”)	Retrieve the logical index (ifIndex) from the physical index of the port
IEEE8023-LAG-MIB	dot3adAggTable (“1.2.840.10006.300.43.1.1”)-	Retrieve the port channels / aggregators configured on the switch
	dot3adAggPortListPorts (“1.2.840.10006.300.43.1.1.2.1.1”)	Retrieve the ports associated with each port channel / aggregator

Configuring Network Discovery Credentials

You must configure two sets of credentials before performing Network Discovery. SNMP credentials are used by Network Controller to access information about network switches. Active Directory user account credentials, which consist of a user name and password, allow Network Controller to access server computers on your network. The following procedures provide instructions for both types of credentials.

Membership in Administrators, or equivalent, is the minimum required to perform the procedures in the following sections. You can run these procedures on the local computer or from a remote computer.

To add SNMP credentials to Network Controller

Perform this procedure for each network switch that you want to discover. Ensure that you replace variable values in the Windows PowerShell example commands below with values that are correct for your deployment.

Open Windows PowerShell and run the following New-NetworkControllerCredential command.

$cred=New-Object Microsoft.Windows.Networkcontroller.credentialproperties
$cred.type="snmpCommunityString"
$cred.value="abcd"  
//Replace with the actual community string configured on the switches

New-NetworkControllerCredential -ConnectionUri https://networkcontroller -Properties $cred –ResourceId cred1
//ConnectionUri is the uri of the Network Controller
//ResourceId is the name of the credential resource

To add user account credentials to Network Controller

Perform this procedure to add administrator credentials for each server computer that you want to discover. Ensure that you replace variable values in the Windows PowerShell example commands below with values that are correct for your deployment.

Open Windows PowerShell and run the following New-NetworkControllerCredential command.

$cred=New-Object Microsoft.Windows.Networkcontroller.credentialproperties
$cred.type="usernamepassword"
$cred.username=”contoso\admin”
//Replace with the actual admin name on the host
$cred.value="abcd"  
//Replace with the actual password configured on the host

New-NetworkControllerCredential -ConnectionUri https://networkcontroller -Properties $cred –ResourceId cred2
//ConnectionUri is the uri of the Network Controller
//ResourceId is the name of the credential resource

Performing Network Discovery Configuration

You must configure Network Discovery before performing any discovery operations.

To configure Network Discovery

Open Windows PowerShell and run the following commands. Ensure that you replace variable values in the Windows PowerShell example commands below with values that are correct for your deployment.

$config=New-Object Microsoft.Windows.Networkcontroller.ConfigurationProperties
$config.DiscoverHosts=”true”
//Whether to discover only switches, or to discover hosts as well
$config.DiscoveryIntervalInMinutes=”1440”
//Frequency at which discovery should be run. You can demand start the discovery as well. Default value is 1440 minutes.
$config.DiscoveryScopes=”10.0.0.1/24”
//IP subnets to which discovery should be scoped. Network devices outside these subnets will not appear in discovered topology.
$credential1=Get-NetworkControllerCredential –ConnectionUri https://networkcontroller –ResourceId cred1
$credential2=Get-NetworkControllerCredential –ConnectionUri https://networkcontroller –ResourceId cred2
$config.Credentials=@($credential1,$credential2)
//Reference to credentials created above. Each of these credentials will be tried on all devices till one of them succeeds
$config.DiscoverySeedDevices=”10.0.0.2”
//IP address of devices that will be used as starting point by network discovery algorithm to discover the network. This should be a switch, specifically a TOR or aggregate switch
$config.HopLimit=”3”
//Specifies the Number of hops from the seed devices that the network discovery should be restricted to. Network devices beyond the hops specified here will not be discovered. Default value is 3.
$config.ActiveDirectoryDomains=”abc.contoso.com”
//List ot Active Directory domains that should be looked up when searching for host records

Set-NetworkControllerTopologyConfiguration –ConnectionUri https://networkcontroller –Properties $config

Configuration for Network Discovery is now complete.

To perform a network discovery, see Perform Network Discovery.