EIP Ping Sweeper

Installation & configuration guide

Last update December 9, 2021
Version 2.3.0
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

DOCUMENT REVISION
Version Date Author Comments

0.1 06/28/2019 Ousmane Savane Document creation

1.0 08/07/2019 Peter Vanek Review document

1.1 12/20/2019 Alexandre Update the document with new tar

Leprevost version (V2)

1.2 09/01/2020 Peter Vanek Review update

2.1 03/29/2021 Charles Hong Update with some bug fixes

2.2 05/05/2021 Charles Hong Update prerequisite

2.3 09/12/2021 Charles Hong Added Cleanup feature

Added macro menu

1
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

TABLE OF CONTENT
DOCUMENT REVISION 1

TABLE OF CONTENT 2

INTRODUCTION 2

OVERVIEW 3

INSTALLATION 4

Prerequisites 4

Upload the tar file on SOLIDserver 4

Install the package 4

Configuration 4

Register and configure the rule 4

Custom fields 6

Configure the listing display 9

Configure network’s properties 10

Running rule manually on the specific subnets 10

TEST CASES 10

Discover subnet 10

Ping Me 11

TROUBLESHOOTING 11

Troubleshooting code 11

Content of the class metadata 12

Network metadata 12

IP address metadata 12

2
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

INTRODUCTION
The goal of this document is to explain how to install and configure EipPingSweeper v2 on
SOLIDserver for versions >=7.2.

OVERVIEW
EipPingSweeper v2 is a specific development that adds two features on SOLIDServer.

● Discover Subnet scheduling

● IP addresses “Health Check”

The Discover Subnet feature allows users to scan a network (ping) and put the discovered IP
addresses in the right subnets in the IPAM.

The "Health Check" feature allows users to check IP addresses health (ping) on a regular
basis. The scheduling is global for both features via a graphic “cron”.

Both options are configurable on subnet level and independent: it is possible to make the
periodic discovery of subnets without checking the health of IP addresses contained in that
network. It is also possible to check the health of existing IP addresses in the IPAM without
doing any discovery in the associated subnets

Since the version 2.3, it is now possible to manually run EipPingSweeper only on selected
subnets.

3
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

INSTALLATION

1. Prerequisites
a. SOLIDserver version >= 7.2

b. Packager Module version >= 2

c. Customization library ECC-standard version >= 3.0

2. Upload the tar file on SOLIDserver

a. Go to Administration > Customization > Packager

b. Click on Add (+) icon

c. Click “Browse”, choose the file and click “OK” to upload

3. Install the package

a. Go to Administration > Customization > Packager

b. Select EipPingSweeper

c. Edit > Install (or Edit > Update if you are upgrading from previous version)

CONFIGURATION

1. Register and configure the rule

a. Go to “Administration> Expert > Rules

b. Click on the Rule name “EIP-PingSweeper V2” and Edit, then refer to the
following screenshots for the configuration.

4
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

c. Click on the button “Next”.

d. Configure the scheduling time.

e. Click on the button “Next”.

f. Select the timezone.

g. Configure the default IP name to use for new discovered IP addresses.

h. Enable/disable warnings from other rules preventing you from creating IP.

i. Click on the button “OK”.

5
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

j. Configure the cleanup policy

■ Cooling period: the period in hours after that if the IP is not reachable
since the last seen time it will be deleted from IPAM. The value 0
means no cleanup.

■ Keep resolvable IPs (only for Cooling period > 0): IP addresses having a
DNS entry (dns-resolvable) will never be deleted by this rule.

NOTE: EfficientIP recommends setting the frequency once a day in order to take care about
performance issues if you are setting several times per day for very large subnets.

2. Custom fields
The archive file contains two classes called pingsweeper which contain the metadata
related to the Ping Sweeper for networks and IP addresses.

Enable the classes:

- Go to Administration > Customization > Class Studio
- Filter on the field “Name” with the value “pingsweeper”

6
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

- Tick both classes

- Click on the edit icon > Enable class

Include the classes in the global class of the network

- Filter on the field “Name” with the value “global”
- Filter on the field “Type” with the value “network”
- Select “All objects” instead of “Most used objects”
- Click on “Include class”
- Select the class as below

7
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

- Click OK

Include the classes in the global class of the ip address

- Filter on the field “Name” with the value “global”
- Filter on the field “Type” with the value “address”
- Select “All objects” instead of “Most used objects”
- Click on “Include class”
- Select the class like in the previous screenshot

The content of metadata is the part “Troubleshooting”

Disable Ping Sweeper classes

Once the pingsweeper classes have been included in the global classes, they can be
disabled.

- Go to Administration > Customization > Class Studio

- Filter on the field “Name” with the value “pingsweeper”
- Tick both classes
- Click on the edit icon > Disable class

Then, we will not appear at the addition/edition of a network or an IP address.

8
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

3. Configure the listing display

Network display
a. Go to “IPAM” tab > “All spaces” > “All network”
b. Click on the listing template icon
c. Tick the metadata “Discover subnet” and “Ping Me”

Address display
a. Go to “IPAM” tab > “All spaces” > “All addresses”
b. Click on the listing template icon
c. Tick the metadata “Alive” and “Last Ping success”

9
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

4. Configure network’s properties

a. Edit the network properties, you will now see the two additional
dropdown menus “Discover subnet” and “Ping Me”.
b. Enable one or both then click “OK”
5. Running rule manually on the specific subnets
a. If you don’t want to wait for the next scheduling you can run it manually
for specific subnets only.
b. Go to IPAM > network pages.
c. Select the subnets where you want to execute PingSweeper.
d. Click on Edit > “Run PingSweeper” menu.

TEST CASES

1. Discover subnet
When the Discover subnet feature is enabled and according to the scheduling, new
discovered IP addresses are created in the IPAM inside the corresponding subnet. If
no IP answers to the ping that has been sent, nothing will happen. Note that there is
no discovery for IPs in DHCP pools.

By default, newly discovered IP addresses will be created with a generic name in

format “discovered_%ip%”, for example “discovered_1.2.3.4”. The generic name can
be customized in EipPingSweeper rule configuration. Another template variable
available is %auto% which will be replaced by a unique ID.

10
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

2. Ping Me
Over an already assigned IP address, once the Ping Me feature is enabled and
according to the scheduling, the fields “Alive” and/or “Last Ping success” will be updated.

1) If the IP address does not respond to the ping, only the field “Alive” will be
updated with the value “unreachable”. The field “Last Ping succes ” is unchanged.
2) If the IP address is still alive, the field “Alive” will be updated with the value “alive”
and the field “Last Ping success ” with the datetime of the ping check.

TROUBLESHOOTING

1. Troubleshooting code
a. Go to the debug page in the GUI (https://X.X.X.X/debug)
b. Scroll down to reach the end of the page
c. Add the key “custom_debug”, set it to “1” then click “SET”
d. Debug messages will now be displayed in the “/var/log/ipmserver.log” file
e. Change the key value to “0” then click “SET” to disable the debug

11
Date: Title: Version:
09/01/2020 Ping Sweeper V2 2.3

CONTENT OF THE CLASS METADATA

a. Network metadata
WDOM Select: Discover subnet
Expert Mode: Yes
Name: efficientip_discover
Label: Discover subnet
Show if: $is_terminal
Default value: off
Select Type: Fixed Values
Key: disable / Label: disable discover
Key: enable / Label: enable discover
WDOM Select: Ping me
Expert Mode: Yes
Name: efficientip_pingme
Label: Ping Me
Show if: $is_terminal
Default value: off
Select Type: Fixed Values
Key: disable / Label: disable pingsweep
Key: enable / Label : enable pingsweep

b. IP address metadata
WDOM input: Alive
Expert Mode: Yes
Name: efficientip_alive
Label: Alive
Not editable: Yes
WDOM input: Last Ping success
Expert Mode: Yes
Name: efficientip_lastseen
Label: Last Ping success
Not editable: Yes

12