Network Inventory User's Guide

First Direct Network Scan with the Quick Start Wizard

When you run Network Inventory for the first time, you are greeted by the Quick Start Wizard. This wizard guides you through a simple process of configuring Network Inventory and helps you audit computers and discover network devices on your network immediately. If you are not ready to audit your network right now, you can choose to audit only your local computer.

NOTE: To complete the Quick Start Wizard, you need to know the credentials of the account that will run the audit. This account should be a member of the local Administrators group on every computer you want to audit. For details, see Audit Credentials.

TIP: By default, the Quick Start Wizard starts every time you launch Network Inventory. If you do not want this to happen, clear the Show this wizard on next start check box at the bottom of the wizard page. You can invoke the Quick Start Wizard by selecting Tools > Quick Start Wizard from the main menu.

To complete the Quick Start Wizard, follow the steps below.

  1. When the Wizard starts, click Next on the Welcome page. The Action to Perform page opens.

    IMPORTANT: The first thing that the Quick Wizard does is check if the Automation Server is running. Normally, it would be already running. If your Automation Server is not started, the Quick Start Wizard will produce a warning. In this case, configure the Automation Server first and restart the wizard.

    NOTE: If there are several Inventory Server instances registered in your database, the wizard will prompt you to select one for running the audit. If there is only one Inventory Server registered in the database and this instance is running, this server is automatically chosen to perform the task, so that the Quick Start Wizard will not show you the Inventory Server page.

  2. Choose one of the following actions:
    • To discover or audit Network Nodes (computers and network devices) within a domain or Active Directory, select Discover devices and audit computers on my network, click Next.
    • To audit your local computer, select Audit my computer, click Next. On the next Audit Credentials for Windows page, enter the credentials for a local administrator account on your computer and click Next. Proceed with the wizard.
  3. Specify the audit scope as a combination of the following options:
    • To scan a Windows domain or workgroup:
      1. Click Add Domain to bring up the Select Domain dialog box.
      2. In the Discovery Method list, choose how to discover computers within a Windows domain:
        • If you want to enumerate computers registered in the Active Directory, select Active Directory. As long as the information in the Active Directory is accurate, you can discover computers disconnected at the time of the device discovery.
        • If you want to query the physical network and discover computers and network devices that respond to ping requests, select Network Browser. There are two prerequisites for the Network Browser option:
          1. The WS-Discovery (Web Services Dynamic Discovery) protocol must be enabled on computers you want to discover and also on the computer hosting your Inventory Server.
          2. Make sure that the Inventory Server is running under a Windows domain user account. For details, see Help: Setting the Startup account. Alternatively, for those of you who still use the SMBv1 protocol (deprecated by Microsoft in 2014), you can enable the SMBv1 network protocol on the Inventory Server computer.
        • To use both methods, select Both Active Directory and Network Browser. Network Inventory will enumerate all computers registered in the Active Directory (including the computers that are switched off or unavailable on the network), and then also perform a direct network scan to discover other computers that are not currently registered in the Active Directory.
      3. Double-click the domain or workgroup name. The Audit Scope page appears with the selected domain/workgroup in the list.
    • To scan an IP address range:
      1. Click Add IP Address Range to bring up the IP Address Range dialog box.

        NOTE: The Quick Start Wizard displays the IP address of your Automation Server and your network subnet mask in the Advanced section.

      2. Specify the IP range as follows:
        • To specify the IP address range manually, do one of the following:
          • Select the IPv4 address range option, enter the Start IPv4 Address and End IPv4 Address of the range.
          • Select the IPv6 address range option, enter the Start IPv6 Address and End IPv6 Address of the range.
          • Select the IPv6 network option, enter the IPv6 prefix and IPv6 mask.
        • To determine the IP address range of your network automatically, select the IPv4 address range, IPv6 address range or the IPv6 network option and click My Network.

          IMPORTANT: Depending on your network configuration, clicking My Network may produce an unreasonably large IP address range where discovering and auditing computers takes a long time. If this happens, you can manually adjust the start and end IP addresses to narrow down the range to include only those IP addresses that are in use. If the IP address range of your network consists of several segments, you can cover the entire network by adding multiple IP address ranges.

      3. Click OK. The selected IP range appears in the list.

    Repeat these steps to add other domains or IP ranges you want to audit. If you want to modify an item in the list, double-click it. To remove an item, select it and click Remove.

    Click Next. The Audit Credentials for Windows page opens.

  4. Specify credentials for running the audit on Windows computers.

    These credentials must represent an account that is a member of the local Administrators group on every computer within the network, either directly or through its membership in a Windows domain group.

    We recommend that you use a domain administrator’s account. You can also specify a local account as long as this account exists on every computer you want audited.

    • To provide credentials for a domain account:
      1. Type in a user login name in the User Name field.
      2. Type in the password in the Password field.
      3. Select or type in a domain name in the Domain field.

        NOTE: Alternatively, you can just type in the domain user name in the User Name field (such as COMPANY/audit).

      4. Click Test Login and make sure that specified credentials allow logging in to the domain.
    • To provide credentials for a local account:
      1. Type in a user login name in the User Name field.
      2. Type in the password in the Password field.
      3. Leave <Local Computer> in the Domain field.

        IMPORTANT: This local account must exist on every computer in the audit scope.

    Click Next. The Audit Credentials for Linux and Mac page opens.

  5. If you have Linux or Mac computers on your network, specify the credentials for running the audit. These credentials must represent an account for logging on to Linux and Mac computers.

    IMPORTANT: Network Inventory establishes connection to networked computers using the Secure Shell protocol (SSH) over a TCP port. Therefore, it is required that the SSH server is running on each client computer and listening on a dedicated TCP port.

    If you want to collect SMBIOS information on Linux computers, we recommend that you provide credentials for the root account or an account that can run the dmidecode command with elevated (root) rights. For more information, see Linux and Mac Direct Network Scan.

    If you want to collect the list of services (daemons) on Mac computers, we recommend that you provide credentials for the root account or an account that can run the "launchctl" command with elevated (root) rights.

    In the Quick Start Wizard, you can just type in the user name and password.

    NOTE: Later, you will be able to apply more advanced techniques. For details, see Linux and Mac Audit Credentials.

    When done, click Next. The Audit Credentials for ESXi/vSphere/Citrix page opens.

  6. If you have ESXi/vSphere or Citrix hypervisors on your network, specify the credentials for running the audit. These credentials must represent an account for logging on to ESXi/vSphere/Citrix computers.

    IMPORTANT:For Citrix hypervisors, Network Inventory establishes connection to networked computers using the Secure Shell protocol (SSH) over a TCP port. Therefore, it is required that the SSH server is running on each client computer and listening on a dedicated TCP port.

    In the Quick Start Wizard, you can just type in the user name and password.

    NOTE: Later, you will be able to apply more advanced techniques. For details, see ESXi/vSphere/Citrix Audit Credentials.

    When done, click Next. The SNMP Credentials page opens.

  7. If you want to discover network devices using the SNMP protocol, provide SNMP credentials that allow accessing their SNMP data. If you are interested in auditing only computers, you can skip this step.
    1. For community-based SNMP versions (v1 or v2c), type in the community string in the Community field.

      IMPORTANT: Most SNMPv1-v2c equipment is shipped with a community string set to "public". It is standard practice for system administrators to change the community strings so that unauthorized users cannot access information about the internal network.

    2. For SNMPv3, which has user-based security, type in the user name and select the security level. Network Inventory supports three SNMPv3 levels:
      • No Authentication, No Privacy — Uses a username for authentication and transmits credentials in clear text.
      • Authentication, No Privacy — Provides packet authentication and message integrity, but no encryption. Select the authentication algorithm (MD5 or SHA) in the Protocol list and type in the pass phrase.
      • Authentication, Privacy Provides maximum security by combining authentication, message integrity, and encryption. Under Authentication, select the authentication algorithm (MD5 or SHA) and type in the pass phrase. Under Privacy, select the encryption algorithm (DES or AES) and type in the passphrase.

    Click Next. The Site Name page opens.

  8. The wizard is going to create a Site that represents your audit scope and stores the credentials you have specified for accessing computers and devices within that scope. When the wizard has finished, you can access this Site in the Sidebar.

    By default, the Name field is generated automatically based on your audit scope. You can keep this auto-generated name, or modify it as needed.

    Click Next. The Ready to Create New Site page opens.

  9. Review your settings. When you are ready to proceed with creating the Site, click Next. If you want to modify any of your settings, click Back and make the necessary changes.

    After the wizard has finished creating the Site, it displays the Wizard Competed page.

  10. Click Finish.
The audit starts automatically when the wizard completes. The Task Progress dialog box appears, where you can monitor the progress.

NOTE: By default, only detected Network Nodes are displayed in the progress data grid (see Filter: Show Detected at the top of the grid). You can change the grid view by selecting another predefined quick filter (such as Show All or Show Succeeded) from the drop-down list.

If the Automation Server is not running, you must start it and then audit your Site.

INFO: For details, see Auditing Network Nodes.