Network Diagram helper software

[MattDLEA]

Is there any free of cheep software that I could run that would map my network for me or is it a case of walk around with a clipboard and sketch whats attached to each switch?

 

How would I go about connecting to the HP Switches I cant seam to find there ip's and I dont know how to connect to the console is there some management software that would make it easier?

 

Basically Im trying to take the network I inherited ( which works ) and start to make it bend to my will

 

 

Thanks in advance

[LeMarchand]

I think you can use Spiceworks. There's also:

 

10SCAPE: Free Network Mapping Software

MikroTik Routers and Wireless: The Dude

 

Don't know if they're any good. Did play with TheDude, but it went on the back burner.

 

If you just want a drawing aid, apparently Visio is good.

[unixman_again]

I can recommend The Dude. The learning curve is a bit steep but it can display loads of good info about your network, once you have rearrange the map it initially draws, into something sensible.

[MattDLEA]

Just installed the dude and ran it. the network map is insane. Just looks like a big starburst everything looking like its connected to the cloud.

I was expecting it to tell me what was conected to each switch ?

 

Also alot of http services on the switches seam to be connection closed?

[CSE_Sumit]

Depending on the size and complexity of the network, you might also want to consider setting up a HP IMC 60 Free Trial. Although not as quick and easy to use as The Dude it does have some nifty features you can make use of. The 60 days should give you enough time to create a network map. It will give you the IP addresses and host name of all your switches as well as detail on how they connect to each other. It will also tell you what firmware is installed and whether it's up to date. The built in wizards will help you make changes to all of your switches without having to log into each one etc..

[IrritableTech]

Just installed the dude and ran it. the network map is insane. Just looks like a big starburst everything looking like its connected to the cloud.

I was expecting it to tell me what was conected to each switch ?

 

I find the dude is better when you manually create the diagram - once set up it is very useful indeed. Perhaps not the click and go solution you were after though.

[Elison]

We use "10 strike network diagram" (more info)

it helps to discover the network map of any size and complexity

and their support is really professional

 

among the free software I can think of Spiceworks, it's rather easy to use

[Geoff]

I have never found a network scanner that worked correctly for a production network. I recommend going round and having a look. It'll be amazing what other issues you'll find along the way too!

[markwilfan]

Probably found one by now, but we use nagios (with Check_mk) to monitor switches, servers and WAPs. Then we use nagvis to make our network map. It is all done manually but just updated as part of our documentation changes whenever something is added/removed. If you spend some time with nagvis you can build yourself a nice little heatmap

 

As you can see ours is not quite there but hopefully should get this sorted by the end of the week.

 

----

 

edit: Just realised you are after a network scanner. Still once you know where everything is I found the best way to learn our network (been in post for 11 months) was to populate nagios and piece together the nagvis map. Good luck

Edited April 8, 2015 by markwilfan