Alerting in specific PowerConnect Switch Ports.

Bill,

There is nothing in the switches that would let you filter/suppress traps so that only specific traps from specific ports are sent.  Once you enable trap forwarding all traps will be sent to the trap hosts.

There are some specific application traps that can be suppressed such as security notifications or certain feature traps such as PoE related traps.

However, the link up/down traps (I'm assuming that's what you mean by traps on certain ports connected to your PCs) are always sent to the trap host once trap is enabled in the switch.

Now it might be possible for your management application to filter/sort out traps you received so you can see only the ones you want but essentially all traps are sent to the manager.  If your goal is to reduce the trap traffic then there is no way to do this.  If your goal is to view only traps you want to see then setting up filtering and sorting on your management station could accomplish this goal.

Cuong.

Hi Bill,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner.  I typically only monitor this forum about once a week :-).  Anyway, there is a way to setup filters to select only the ports or rather the "managed objects" you care about.  Assuming that you have more PC ports then non-PC ports, we'll setup the filter to filter out only non-PC ports.  If you have more non-PC ports you could still use this method but when setting up the filter just set it up to ignore PC ports (use "not equals to" operator instead).  This way you don't have too many things to add to the filter.  Here is what you need to do:

• Go to the "Event Filter Management" screen and selects on "New" to create a new filter.
• Give the filter a name such as "NonPCPortsFilter".
• For the "Connector" select "OR".
• For the "Attribute" select "Managed Object Name".
• For "Operator" select "= (Equals)".
• In the "Value" panel select the "..." next to the "Managed Object Name" selector.  This will bring up an equipment manager like screen.  Select on the switch with the port that you want to filter on.  Then expand the switch object to show all the ports and select on the port you want to filter on.  Click the "select" button which will close this window and bring you back to the "filter editor".
• Click "Add" on the filter window to add this port to the filter criteria panel.
• Select on the "..." again to add another port.
• Continue until you add all the ports you need.  Make sure that you added all these with the "OR" option in this case (if you were creating an "ignore" filter then use "AND" connector).

By the time you are done you should have a filter which will filter on Managed Objects which are any of the non-PC ports.

Now go to the "Event Monitor" or "Event History" screen and select on the "..." next to the "Filter" field.  Select on your new filter and apply it (on the Event Monitor screen the filter is immediately applied, but on the Event History screen you might have to click on "refresh" to apply the filter).

Note that if you change the filter definition you must first select on a different filter then reselect the filter you just changed to re-apply it.  Changing the filter does not take affect immediately.  The filter definition is loaded into memory and is not replaced even if you click on refresh.

Another thing to note is that although the "Managed Object Name" field implies that the filter operate on the "Managed Object Names", in fact it is operating on the "Managed Object" definition itself via an internal name and so you may rename the port in the future and the filter would still work correctly.  This is necessary in case you rename the port and still want to apply the filter to event history.  If it truly operates on the "name" then the filter would stop working on historical events if you rename the managed objects.

Hi:

I followed your process and I am not able to get filter working.  Below is what is shown within the Filter Criteria window.  I assuming the below list will filter out (exclusion list), but still show everything else.  I am not seeing anything after choosing this filter.  I did the switching approach as well.

Managed Object Name = “g1”

OR Managed Object Name = “g24”

OR Managed Object Name = “g9”

As well, just adding (Managed Object Name = “g24”) by it’s self does not show anything either.

I’ve noticed one thing; it seems all the device ports I add show up with the same listed below.  I have no way of knowing which device the port belongs to.

I have about 75 switches to configure this way, no ware in the Filter Criteria does it list the device name.  What is your suggestion on managing this number of devices within one scrip when all I see is the above?  Can I add comments or such?

Is there another way to edit this script?

Thanks

-Bill

Can you tell me which version of OpenManage Network Manager you are using?  Also what kind of switches are you working with?

Bill,

I should have made sure I was running the latest release code before I tested your scenario.  Sorry about that.  I'm actually in the development team and I'm running a version of software that's not available until 6/27/05 (next week).  I just retested with the same switches you are running and it works for me so the only difference is the release you are running versus what I'm running.  Let me revert my software to the latest publically available version to confirm that the problem is indeed with the version you are running instead of something else.  If I can't make it work in the 1.2 release but can make it work on the 2.0 release then I will let you know to wait for the 2.0 release that should be available on 6/27.

It will take me about an hour or so to confirm this.  I will let you know shortly.

Cuong.

Bill,

I have just confirmed the problem with 1.2 software.  This feature does not work on the 1.2 software release but will work on the upcoming 2.0 software release.  When you upgrade to 2.0 you will need to delete the old filter you created and create a new filter using the 2.0 software.

BTW, as to your other point concerning the name of the ports being too generic (e.g. e1 or g1) making it hard to identify as being from a particular switch in your filter, I have a solution for that too :-).

Just go to the equipment manager screen, select on your switch, expand it on the bottom panel to get a list of ports.  Select on the port and open it to the port editor screen.  From the "General" configuration screen you can name your port.  For example, you might name the ports you care about something like "IMPORTANT_switchA_e1".  Now when you receive an event for that port the "Managed Object Name" will show this name instead of the simple "e1".  Also when you get the port list from any screen, this name will show up instead.

I hope this help.  Sorry for not testing the correct version earlier and wasting some of your time.  The 2.0 release will solve this problem for you.

Cuong.