Discover Switch port connectivity

[alif]

We need to discover what is connected to hundereds of switches and the customer has poor documentation. They are running CiscoWorks. Can CiscoWorks generate reports to show what is connected to each of the switches it is managing?.

[IAN WHITMORE]

Well I haven't used CW for a long time and can't really remember (sure somebody will answer your question though). You can at least get the MAC addresses of whatever is attached to the ports. You can of course get more information using other tools likes SolarWinds or a quick search in google will uncover lots more.

From the MAC you can get the OUI of course but a bit more probing you can get what systems are connected - i.e. windows or linux etc. You could use a lot of the tools that come for free on backtrack if you know a little about linux.

HTH,

Ian

[Keith Abbott]

A free/low-cost option would be to use lantopolog. Versions up to 1.22 are freeware and after that the versions are very inexpensive.

It uses SNMP to scan and create a graphic representation of the LAN interconnects. It shows what each port of each device is connected to, whether it be another switch, or an end-user device. It will give port numbers of each connection, IP address if available, and Mac address, and each of these is searchable.

The only proviso is that you have to know the community string(s) for the switches.

Hope this helps....