Importing Devices from a CSV File

This section describes how to add devices to Net Inspector by importing the device information from a CSV (comma-separated values) text file.

 

The CSV file should contain the following data about devices (one line per device):

name, address, port, "description"

The name and address are mandatory, while port and description are optional data. Data separator character is comma (,).

Meaning of data fields:

name - device name as it will appear in Net Inspector

address - device IPv4 or IPv6 address or hostname

port - UDP port on which device listens to for SNMP requests (if not present, the port from the assigned access profile is used)

description - device description as it will appear in Net Inspector. Description must be enclosed in double quotes.

 

The lines in CSV file can contain 2, 3 or 4 data fields (columns). Below are some examples of a valid CSV file content:

localhost,127.0.0.1
localhost,127.0.0.1,1161
localhost,127.0.0.1,"local machine"
localhost,127.0.0.1,1161,"local machine"

 

 

Note: Only users with administrator access rights are permitted to add new devices to Net Inspector.

 

  1. Click the Devices tab in Net Inspector header to display the Devices page.

  2. In the upper-right section of the Devices frame, click the Configure button to enter the Configuration Mode.

Figure: Switching into map Configuration Mode

  1. In the Explorer section of the Map View frame, click the map, to which you would like to add new devices and click the Add Device button, as shown in the image below .

Figure: Clicking the Add Device button (in map Configuration Mode)

 

  1. The Select Device Type dialog box appears, prompting you to choose the device type first. Select the type and class of device that best matches the devices you are going to import, e.g., IP Server (if you are importing different types of devices, select the IP Any option). Click the Select button.

Figure: Selecting the device type (from common IP types)

 

  1. In the New Device dialog box that appears, click the Browse (...)  button next to the Import from file input line to browse the file system and select the comma-separated values (.CSV) file that contains information about devices you wish to import.

Figure: Choosing the Import from file option in the New Device dialog box

 

  1. The name of the selected .csv file appears in the Import from file input line and the number of devices to be imported is displayed below it.

Figure: Importing devices - specifying device properties

 

  1. In the New Device dialog box specify the following properties:

 

  1. After specifying all parameters in the New Device dialog box, click the OK button to close it and start importing devices. The imported device icons will be added to the selected map (as shown in the image below). Note that the imported devices are also added to the Device Panel. Net Inspector starts polling the imported devices and listening for SNMP Trap and Inform messages sent by devices. If everything is configured properly, the status of the manage objects changes from Unmanaged to Normal, i.e., the background color of the managed object icons changes from blue to green.

Figure: Imported devices are added to a map (and to Device Panel)

 

Note:  When you add a device to Net Inspector and enable monitoring it, Net Inspector starts monitoring all network interfaces, storage units (disk partitions) and network services on the given device. You can modify which interfaces, storage units, services and running processes on the given device will be monitored, as described in the Configuring Device Monitoring Options topic.