Switchport Map / News: Recent posts

Wow, after starting to work on the database again I found that the SNMP.Cisco engine wasn't returning data on trunk port vlans, which is kind of a problem. I've finally nailed it after pouring over the Cisco MIB's and trying to find out how to find the info. Basically, I need to parse some HEX that tells you what VLAN is allowed on a trunk. The awesome thing about this is that this code/concept could be applied to access ports as well.... read more

After my post last week I started work on creating an SNMP Cisco engine for Switchport Map. I just committed a working copy to svn and you can grab a copy from there. It should work with the v0.1 release code. However it will require an install of Net-SNMP (http://www.net-snmp.org/) before it will function. See the snmp.cisco.test.php for details on how to use it.

I decided on Net-SNMP because I found that the PHP SNMP extension wasn't well documented and wasn't returning data much needed data. Whether this was because of me, or extension, I don't know.... read more

While I haven't been working on much code for Switchport Map, I have been taking the time to about SNMP. The reason for this is that I'd like to get away from parsing telnet sessions with the switches. This would allow more information to be gleaned and in a manner that would be far friendlier to the programmer.

Over the coming months I'm going to be working on converting things to use SNMP.

Until next time!

Almost April Fools!

Sorry for the lack of updates folks, but it's been kinda busy at work lately. Part of the building is getting remodeled and is getting closer to completion, which means the extra Cisco switches we've ordered will soon be unavailable for testing purposes. So I've going full force into learning the Cisco ASA platform and how to use it in conjunction with VTP and VMPS for network security. Both of these I think something related to Switchport Map in some way. Either as tracking or even administration roles...maybe both.... read more

Working hard on a new version and new features.

Currently somewhat done:
-Switch interface to patch panel mappings to cubes. So far though it only goes from switch to patch.
--Future additions here will probably include image map overlays.
-Faster switch interface list generation. Before it was taking over a minute to build list for an 8 switch network with about 80-90 nodes.
-None root or invoker privileged stored procedures.
-Web results viewer. This is actually getting along. Nothing really fancy at the moment, but functional.... read more

Hey! Time for a release, not for instructions or install, but for those so inclined, I'm sure you can figure it out.

https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=252070&package_id=308191&release_id=661314

Well, semi-as-promised, I've got the code up I've been working on. Unfortunately, I don't have the stored procedures on hand at the moment. So until I do, I'll have to hold off on an official release, but you can grab the php files from the SVN!

http://switchportmap.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/switchportmap/

Just finished rewriting and severely cleaning up the Cisco and Powerconnect classes, as well as a slight rewrite of the controller. Tomorrow, I'll actually test the code for parsing errors and errors in output. Tomorrow night if I can take care of any errors, I'll have something respectable to upload to the SVN.

Next on the list is getting it all in a database and after that, getting it back out in a fast and coherent fashion.

While cleaning up, I ended up needing to write a Dell Powerconnect "engine" so I also wrote a new interface/control class to abstract between the Cisco and Dell engines. Other new items, starting to get a file structure going, array structures for MACs and ARP tables.

Assuming I have time later this week away from the GF, I'll be able to get a semi-working version uploaded!

It's been a couple days now and this code cleaning is...well...even harder than I had thought it'd be. The code apparently is way more convoluted, and not friendly to configurations than I thought it would be. (It's been a while since I programmed it.)

So hopefully with me taking a couple sick days and some time this weekend, I'll be able to get it pretty close to being done!

While version .01 is running in the wild, it's very much tied in with the environment it was made more. It should only take me a couple/few days to clean up the code and add comments for general use. So I'll be back in a couple days with an update.

Over and out captain.