Cisco FindIT Network Probe Raspberry

[Lee Cox]

I have Cisco's FindIT software loaded on a Windows 7 workstation.  The FindIT software covers my management VLAN and finds all my 7 Cisco devices except my Cisco RV320 router which is setup in a separate router VLAN.  I was wondering if I could use a probe in the router VLAN to monitor my RV320 router soon to be a RV340 router.  I read you could use a Raspberry PI for a probe.   How do I go about this?

My setup is a SG300-28 switch in layer 3 mode doing DHCP.  I have 2 other switches trunked to the L3 switch and 3 WAP371 wireless access points trunked with 2 SSIDs.  I have 3 network VLANs. ALL Cisco gear.

I guess I could move my router to my management VLAN but it is not my choice.

Does this make sense?  I would like to tie my new RV340 router to the FindIT software.

[David Harper]

Hi there,

To answer your question, yes you could use the Probe software on a Raspberry Pi to discover the router.  Indeed, you would most likely not need to have the Probe on the same VLAN as the router, because in most cases, the probe will successfully discover and connect to devices across VLANs, and certainly it should based on the description of your network.

The downside of this approach is that, while the FindIT Utility running on Windows is a simple discovery tool and is very straightforward, the FindIT Probe for part of a more full featured network management system, and should be use in conjunction with the FindIT Network Manager software.  Depending on exactly what you are trying to do, you may find all that functionality very useful and worth the additional effort of setting it up, or it might be like using a sledge hammer to swat a mosquito.  Certainly the FindIT Probe/Manager combination will do basically everything the Utility does, plus a lot more.  But using the Probe+Manager is a bit more involved than using the Utility.

Hope that helps a little bit.

Cheers,

Dave.