Question

Network Diagram Software

Asked by: DVation191

I'm looking for some software that can run in a win32 environment with domain administrative rights that can auto-discover the network it's on and produce a graphical map of the network. Cheops is sort-of what I'm looking for except that it runs on linux and I was never quite able to make it work right.... Anybody know any other suggestions?

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Asked On
2005-01-10 at 07:50:43ID21268387
Tags

network

,

diagram

,

linux

Topics

Miscellaneous Networking

,

Network Auditing Software

,

IPSec Security Protocol

Participating Experts
9
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: PeteLongPosted on 2005-01-10 at 07:59:34ID: 13003990

FLuke Network Inspector 5 can do this if its installed with Visio - though when you see how much it costs you may reconsider?

 

by: DVation191Posted on 2005-01-10 at 08:08:08ID: 13004113

Though I do have Visio, I was looking for a software solution...not a hardware solution. Fluke makes some incredible products...too bad you have to have such a huge budget to afford any of their products!

 

by: mohawk1Posted on 2005-01-10 at 08:22:35ID: 13004268

Try NetViz.  This is a good software solution. http://www.netviz.com/home/index.asp

Mohawk1

 

by: DVation191Posted on 2005-01-10 at 08:40:48ID: 13004493

I just installed the Demo for NetViz ... for the life of me i can't find any options on how to discover the network and have it produce a network map. How do you do this?

 

by: detox1978Posted on 2005-01-10 at 09:10:26ID: 13004867

Maybe not as good as Fluke, but will give you a decent starting point if you have to do you own is the Advanced LAN Scanner.

http://www.radmin.com/download/

 

by: lrmoorePosted on 2005-01-10 at 09:39:55ID: 13005172

Fluke's LANMapShot is software only solution...
http://www.flukenetworks.com/us/LAN/Monitoring+Analysis+Diagramming/LAN+MapShot/Overview.htm

What's up Gold does auto-discovery and creates a map for you
http://www.ipswitch.com

AdRem NetCrunch does a pretty good job of auto-discovery.
http://www.adremsoft.com/netcrunch/index.php

 

by: WraezorPosted on 2005-01-10 at 11:08:52ID: 13006220

3Com Network Supervisor is another option.  It's a bit older but still does a decent job.  They offer a 60 day trial.

http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/detail.jsp?tab=features&pathtype=purchase&sku=3C15100D

 

by: goldbandPosted on 2005-01-10 at 11:42:57ID: 13006548

i have the same question

 

by: RDAdamsPosted on 2005-01-10 at 12:37:49ID: 13007153

I picked up flukes LANMapShot for $20.00.  It is great.  Limitation is it only sees the portion of the network you are currently on.  You cannot specify a start point in your network to work from.

 

by: amanzoorPosted on 2005-01-10 at 12:42:55ID: 13007216

Dvation
-I agree with irmoore I prefer ipswitch product 'whats' up gold', try there trial version. It has the diagram (network mapping) feature which you want.
Hope that helped.

 

by: DVation191Posted on 2005-01-10 at 13:37:38ID: 13007742

The few that I've tried already all require the Community String or Name...unfortunately I have no clue what it is, but it is needed to do the network discovering. I have administrative rights...any idea how I find out the community name of SNMP packets on my network?

 

by: lrmoorePosted on 2005-01-10 at 13:55:33ID: 13007938

Try "public" and/or "private"
These are the two default strings. Anything else would be a wild guess.

and/or use a sniffer to capture the strings. They are un-encrypted.

These are definately needed for SNMP discovery, but not necessary for ICMP (ping) discovery.
Windows Workstations do not have SNMP enabled by default, and neither do most servers.

In WhatsUp, for example, you can specify multiple levels of discovery from ICMP only to ICMP+SNMP

 

by: pseudocyberPosted on 2005-01-11 at 04:48:27ID: 13012934

Visio Enterprise used to be able to do it, but looking around at Microsoft's site, it doesn't appear they still make Visio Enterprise - anyone know if they do or not?

 

by: mohawk1Posted on 2005-01-11 at 04:54:38ID: 13012977

Are you the administrator of your network?  If you are then it's not a problem.  Just telnet onto your devices and look in the configuration for the snmp read/write community strings.  If these are public/private then you need to change these from a security perspective.  If you are not the network administrator then you will need to speak to who is.  They will probably be quite strict on giving this information out, depending on your organisation of course.

Mohawk1

 

by: DVation191Posted on 2005-01-11 at 08:30:25ID: 13015295

yea public and private were already in those programs as defaults to be tried and they didn't work. I'll try running the ping sweeps instead of SNMP.

re:Visio Enterprise, they have a visio 2003 resouce kit that provides such functionality...i think they are asking $199 or $299 for it....

and yes, I have administrative rights on the domain ... ill look into that

 

by: lrmoorePosted on 2005-01-11 at 08:36:40ID: 13015386

The Visio 2003 Resource Kit is actually a licensed copy of Fluke LAN MapShot plus some samples of visio shapes (I bought it...)

 

by: DVation191Posted on 2005-01-12 at 06:12:25ID: 13023901

Thanks for all the input guys...it was hard to pick an answer since a lot of them were good...but I ended up liking  LANMapShot the best....

Thank you!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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