Probe Initial setup

[Brian Bergin]

Why does the Probe use DHCP when the Manager has an option at setup to do static?  Seems inconsistent not to mention if one runs multiple DHCP servers finding the IP of the Probe is a bit of a hassle.

[David Harper]

Since the probe is being installed in the same network as the network devices, we deliberately modelled the installation process on the way the devices work.  So initial address setup using DHCP, along with Bonjour to advertise its existence on the network.  If you have the FindIT Utility running, you should see it pop up in the sidebar.  You can doubleclick to access the probe UI and then configure it through Administration > Platform Settings.

The manager actually works the same way, but we added the config_vm script for the case where it is installed on a remote VM host or AWS etc where you will not be on the same network as the VM.

I guess you are suggesting we should add a similar script to the probe as well?

Cheers,
Dave.

[Brian Bergin]

Yes, absolutely.  DHCP is find for client devices like a computer, but for a device that serves as a web server you have to be static or at least know quickly where it is.  I would not have assumed Cisco would expect both FindIT 2.0 and the new version to be installed side-by-side (yes, it does show up, but I never considered looking for it there, I went to my DHCP servers to find it).  If the admin is going to setup the Manager they will have no issues setting up the probe too.

[David Harper]

I'm not sure we'd expect them to be installed side-by-side on the same machine, so much as the utility is installed on the user's PC and they are installing the probe on a server in the same network.  I'm also not sure how sustainable connecting to servers by IP address is in the long term, especially with IPv6 wending its way closer to the LAN.  But that's a different conversation.

In any case, having options is rarely a bad thing.  I'll see if we can get the config_vm script added to the probe.  There are some differences in the environment that means it won't necessarily be just a simple copy.

Cheers,
Dave.

[Brian Bergin]

In a small biz there's often only going to be one machine with a hypervisor installed, but either way you still have to dig around for an IP or know to install FindIT 2.0 (which would seem illogical if this is FindIT too) if you installed it on a different machine.

As for IPv6 on the LAN, I've found and seen little to no need for it on a SMB network (except for the one tiny client who decided they'd use Win7's Homegroup setup which I quickly removed and replaced with proper file sharing over IPv4).  Most ISPs don't even offer public IPv6 IPs yet either.  If there are good reasons why an SMB would use it internally please share.  I've just not seen a need at this point.

[David Harper]

I don't know that there is a strong business driver for IPv6 for SMB, rather that as new applications get deployed that are primarily IPv6 or v6-only, that will drive the change.  But it won't happen quickly.

In any case, we've added a config_vm script to the Probe, and also displayed the current IP address in the banner that gets displayed when you log on (username/password cisco/cisco).  You'll see that in the beta 4 build.  We've added a similar banner to the Manager, but that missed the beta 4 build.  You'll see that in beta 5.

Cheers,
Dave.