Any way to allow others to view saved Topology layouts?

[kilravock]

Hi

Is there any way within Topology Services (LMS 4.2.3 with 5000 devices) to allow other users to see Topology layouts.  We look after a substantial number of sites and I have created User Defined groups for each site.  Within Topology services I have created (and saved) layouts for each group.  The problem is that only I can see these layouts.  If anyone else on the team logs in with their own user name they can see the groups OK but when they select Display View they see the default layout - i.e. a pretty tangled mess!  Many of our sites have over 100 managed devices and we have a team of a dozen engineers - seems a bit wasteful for each one to have to create 20 or more effectively identical layouts. 

Any help appreciated.

Alan

[Marvin Rhoads · Accepted solution]

It's not a supported method, but the views you create are stored on the LMS server as xml files (as shown below on soft appliance) in /opt/CSCOpx/campus/etc/users/. The xml files are mostly a listing of the node IDs with their map coordinates.

You could copy them manually into the other users' directories on the server and they should see the same thing you have labored to create for their viewing pleasure.

I have brought this up with Cisco as a nice to have supported feature in the past but it never went anywhere.

[SecLab-LMS/root-ade admin]# pwd

/opt/CSCOpx/campus/etc/users/admin

[SecLab-LMS/root-ade admin]# ls -al

total 28

drwxr-x--- 2 casuser casusers 4096 Dec 16  2012 .

drwxr-x--- 4 casuser casusers 4096 Feb  8  2013 ..

-rw-r----- 1 casuser casusers 7345 Aug 29 13:23 Layer~2~View.xml

-rw-r----- 1 casuser casusers 1807 Nov  8  2012 SwitchCloud-1.xml

-rw-r----- 1 casuser casusers 1540 Feb 27  2013 Unconnected~Device~View.xml

-rw-r----- 1 casuser casusers  351 Sep 25 15:59 user.preferences

[SecLab-LMS/root-ade admin]#

[kilravock]

Thanks Marvin that'll do the trick until Cisco catch up!  Rather than copy the files though I've created links in each users home directory to the originals in mine so that any changes I make are reflected without me having to re-copy.  Seems to work fine.

ln -s /opt/CSCOpx/campus/etc/users/layout_creator/User~Defined~Groups~Group1.xml User~Defined~Groups~Group1.xml

etc..

[Marvin Rhoads]

Ah very nice - a symbolic link. I'm not a Unix guy so I didnt' think of that. +5 to you too!