Pre-Requisites
Any Zenoss compatible version installation and a device with interfaces.
Applies To
- Zenoss 4.1.x
- Zenoss 4.0.x
- Zenoss 3.1.x
- Zenoss 3.0.x
- Zenoss 2.5.x
Summary
By default Zenoss may be configured to model and monitor network interfaces that are unimportant to you or your organization.
Examples of such interfaces may include loopback interfaces on servers or unrouted VLANs on Cisco switches. Excluding these interfaces from modeling and monitoring will conserve Zenoss resources, potentially improving Zenoss' performance and scalability. Zenoss administrators may also benefit from the reduced event load (via elimination of 'threshold exceeded' events related to these unimportant interfaces) and from reduced interface clutter.
The Configuration Properties for devices or device classes may be edited to omit the modeling and monitoring of particular network interfaces or interface types. For a refresh on using Configuration Properties in Zenoss, refer to the Configuration Properties section in chapter 5 of the 4.2.3 Zenoss Service Dynamics Resource Management Administration Guide.
Procedure
Zenoss enables you to identify particular interfaces for exclusion using either their names or their types. The following methods describe how to find and specify interface types for exclusion from Zenoss monitoring:
- Method 1 describes how to use interface names to specify interfaces for exclusion.
- Method 2 explains how to use type matching with regular expressions to specify interface types to ignore.
Method 1:
Using zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames
You can exclude unwanted network interfaces using the zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames configuration property to identify the interfaces using name matching. This process uses regular expression matching on interface names. It offers flexibility and easy determination of affected interfaces. The following three examples demonstrate use of this method.
- Example 1: Ignoring Windows Loopback interfaces On All Servers In /Devices/Server/Windows
- Navigate to Infrastructure → Devices → Server → Windows.
- Click Details.
- Select Configuration Properties in the left pane. The properties display in the right pane.
- Use the Search field at the top of the configurations properties pane. Enter zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames into the Names filter field.
- Double-click zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames and edit the zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames value to: Loopback.
Note: Because the field can use regular expressions, entries are case sensitive. The field can contain multiple items, separated by the pipe mark " | ", without spaces.
- Example 2: Ignoring Linux loopback and sit interfaces
Note: The sit (simple internet transition) interface is for a device capable of encapsulating IPv6 into IPv4 datagrams.
- Navigate to Infrastructure → Devices → Server → Linux.
- Click Details.
- Select Configuration Properties to display the properties in the right pane.
- Use the Search field at the top of the configurations property list to search for zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames.
- Change the zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames value to the regular expression that searches for Loopback and/or sit, for example: ^(lo\d*|sit\d*)$
Notes:
- Because the field can use regular expressions, entries are case sensitive. The field can contain multiple items, separated by the pipe mark " | ", without spaces.
- The regular expression to ignore both loopback and sit interfaces would be ^(lo\d*|sit\d*)$. Here is a breakdown of each component of the expression to aid you in forming your own regular expressions:
^ = indicates starting position
( ) = left and right parenthesis that define the scope of the expression
lo = string to search for, in this case lo for loopback
\d = optional digit appended to name, if any
| = The pipe mark separates independent search terms (in this case lo and sit)
sit = string to search for, in this case sit for the sit interface
$ = match end of string
- Example 3: Ignoring Cisco unrouted VLAN and Null interfaces
- Navigate to Infrastructure→ Devices→ Network→ Cisco.
- Click Details.
- Select Configuration Properties to display the properties in the right pane.
- Use the Search field at the top of the configurations properties pane. Enter zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames into the Names filter field.
- Double-click zInterfaceMapIgnoreNames to change the value to the regular expression: ^(unrouted VLAN|Null)
Note: Because the field can use regular expressions, entries are case sensitive. The field can contain multiple items, separated by the pipe mark " | ", without spaces.
Method 2:
Using zInterfaceMapIgnoreTypes
You can also exclude unwanted network interface types by using the zInterfaceMapIgnoreTypes configuration property to match unwanted interface types.
To determine an existing interface type within Zenoss, view the details for an interface of that type on any device where the interface has been modeled by Zenoss.
Note: If you know the name of an interface of the applicable type, you can search for instances of it using the search field on the right of the top-level navigation bar.
- Click the Infrastructure tab.
- Click the name of any device that has an interface of the type to ignore.
- In the left pane, click Interfaces.
- Click the appropriate interface from the list on the right.
- Click the drop down arrow from the Display menu and select Details.
The type property is listed in the details pane. Note the type for use with the zInterfaceMapIgnoreTypes configuration property to filter out unwanted interface types.
Notes:
- If it is present, do not include a trailing “_64” when specifying the type name in the value for zInterfaceMapIgnoreTypes.
- Ignoring interfaces by matching their type is less commonly employed because there is a possibility of matching more interfaces than intended. This can unintentionally exclude interfaces.
- Example: Ignoring all PPP interfaces
- Navigate to Infrastructure→ Devices and select the Devices class (the top of the device class list).
- Click Details.
- Select Configuration Properties to display the properties in the right pane.
- Use the Search field at the top of the configurations property list to search for zInterfaceMapIgnoreTypes
- Double-click zInterfaceMapIgnoreTypes and change the value to: ppp
Note: Because the field can use regular expressions, entries are case sensitive. The field can contain multiple items, separated by the pipe mark " | ", without spaces.
More Information
When setting configuration properties, you must account for the device class hierarchy and decide at what level the property customization makes sense. Typically this is at the highest level of the hierarchy relevant to your change. For example, to ignore unrouted VLANs for Cisco switches, configure the property at the /Network/Cisco device class.
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