Designing and Managing Behavior Models - Discovering and Defining Nodes - Defining Nodes Manually -
Using NerveCenter's IPSweep Behavior Model      Configuring SNMP Settings for Nodes

Defining Nodes Manually

There are two situations in which you should define nodes manually using the NerveCenter Client.

• You are managing a very small network, and it is easier to define the nodes in the network manually than to configure NerveCenter's IPSweep behavior model.
• You've discovered most of your nodes using either your network management platform's or NerveCenter's discovery mechanism, but you need to add to your database a few nodes on a subnet that wasn't explored during the discovery process.

In either case, you can define your nodes using the Node Definition window in the client.

 
  To define a node manually:

1. From the client's Admin menu, select Node List.

   The Node List window is displayed.

   

2. In the Node List window, select the New button.

   The Node Definition window appears.

   

3. In the Name text field, type the name of the workstation or network device that the node object represents. The name can be a hostname or an IP address.

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      The maximum length for node names is 255 characters.

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4. Select the node's property group from the Group list box.

   The Group list box contains a list of all the valid property group names defined in the NerveCenter database.

5. In the Port text field, type the number of the port on the node to which NerveCenter should send messages.

   SNMP agents use port 161 to receive SNMP messages.

6. In the New IP text field, type the node's IP address. Then select the Add button to add the address to the IP Address List. If the node is multihomed, you can add the node's other addresses to the list in the same manner.

   If you need to delete an address from the address list, highlight that address, and then select the Delete button.

7. Check the Managed checkbox if you want NerveCenter to manage the node.

   You can leave Managed unchecked if you do not want the node to be affected by any NerveCenter behavior models.

8. Check the Auto Delete checkbox if you want the node to be deleted if it is not in your network management platform's (NMP's) node database.

   The setting of this property is meaningful only if you are using an NMP as your node source. If you're using an NMP as a node source and you check the Auto Delete checkbox, the node you're defining will be deleted when the NerveCenter database is synchronized with the NMP's node database, if the node you're defining is not found in the NMP's node database. If you don't want the node to be deleted in this situation, don't check the Auto Delete checkbox.

9. The Platform checkbox is a read-only control.

   When you define a node manually, Platform is read-only and is unchecked and indicates that the node you are defining was not discovered by a network management platform.

10. Check the Suppressed checkbox if you want the node to be in a suppressed state.

    A suppressed node is not polled by any suppressible polls (a poll's default state). Only polls designed to monitor a device's responsive/unresponsive state are not suppressible.

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       Normally, you do not check Suppressed. A node's suppressed attribute is usually set by an alarm action when the alarm detects that the node is not reachable.

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11. By default, NerveCenter deems the SNMP version for a node to be version 1. If you want to manage the node using SNMP version 2c or 3, you must configure the appropriate SNMP settings in the SNMP tab. In the SNMP tab, you can also change the Read and Write community names for a node that's using SNMP version 1 or 2c.

    For details, see Configuring SNMP Settings for Nodes on page 107.

12. Select the Save button.