Bulk Modification of IP address, Port, Community and SNMP OIDs

• Overview

• Bulk Modification of IP Address

• Bulk Modification of Port Number

• Bulk Modification of Community

• Bulk Modification of SNMP Values

Overview

The Bulk Modification feature is a very important feature that can improve your productivity. In the topic, Template Devices and Configurations, we learnt that template based bulk modifications can be made on the network devices.

The Bulk Modification option in the Tools menu enables you to do ipaddress based bulk modifications on the network devices. Using this option, you can modify the IP address, Port number, Community and SNMP agent values corresponding to SNMP OIDs across all or selected agents present in the network.

Bulk Modification of IP Address

The IP address of all the devices or a specified range of devices in the network can be modified, either by incrementing the given IP address or by updating the same IP address to all the devices.

To modify the IP address of all the devices,

1. Select Tools -> Bulk Modification option from the menu bar. The Bulk modification dialog is displayed.

2. Select the option IP addresses.

3. Select the range of ipaddress to be modified.

4. Specify the Starting IP Address to be assigned for the first device.

5. To increment the IP address, select the option Increment the IP address and click Modify. All the devices in the network will be incrementally assigned an IP address starting from the ip address that you have specified.

6. To assign the ipaddress from a file, select the option IP address list from file and specify the text file.

Example

• Assume you have added 10 devices using the Network Design Tool wizard with  IP address : 190.191.1.1 to 190.191.1.10.

• You wish to change the IP address of the devices in the network. Using the Bulk modification tool if you specify the starting IP address as 190.191.40.21, all the device IP address will be changed incrementally.

• Now the device IP address in the selected network will be 190.191.40.21 to 190.191.40.30 .

Bulk Modification of Port number

The port number of all the devices in the network can be modified, either by incrementing the specified port number or updating the same port number to all the devices.

To modify the port number of all the devices, follow the steps given below.

1. Select Tools -> Bulk Modification option from the menu bar. The Bulk modification screen comes up with four options.

2. Select the option Ports.

3. Select the Protocol whose port number is to be modified and specify the Port number to be assigned for the first device.

4. To increment the port number, select the option Increment the Port number and click Modify. All the devices in the network will be incrementally assigned a port number starting from the port number  that you have specified.

5. To update the same port number to all devices, select the option  Same port number and click Modify. All the devices in the network will be assigned the same port number that you have specified.

Example

• Assume you have added 10 devices using the Network Design Tool wizard with SNMP port number 8001 to 8010.

• You wish to change the SNMP port number of the devices in the network, starting with 9001. Using the Bulk modification tool if you select SNMP port specify the starting port number as 9001, all the device SNMP port numbers will be changed incrementally.

• Now the device SNMP port number in the selected network will be 9001 to 9010.

Bulk Modification of Community

The community of all the devices in the network can be modified.

1.  Select  Tools -> Bulk Modification option from the menu bard. The screen comes up with four options.
2.  Choose Community.
3.  Choose the IP address type either IPv4 Addrsess or IPv6 Address.
4.  Select Starting IP address and Ending IP address from the drop-down box. This is the range where the modification is to be applied.
5.  Click Add in either Read Community or Write Community to display the Configure Community Value dialog.
6.  Provide new Community Value and Cilck OK.
7.  Click Modify to configur the changes.
   

• Assume you have added 10 devices using the Network Design Tool wizard with IPv6 address : 5:5:5:5:5:5:5:5 to 5:5:5:5:5:5:5:e
• Now you wish to change the community values of all the IPv6 address of the devices in the network.
• After completeing steps 1 to 5 with the starting IPv6 address as 5:5:5:5:5:5:5:5 and the ending Pv6 addresses as 5:5:5:5:5:5:5:e.
• Now specify the community values which you want to configure for those devices in step 6.
• Click Modify. The corresponding communities will be set for those range of devices.
• If new communities not specified in step 6, previous configuration will be maintained correspondingly.

Bulk Modification of SNMP OIDs

To change the value of a particular MIB node ( interested value ) across all or selected agents present in the network.

1. Select Tools -> Bulk Modification option from the menu bar. The screen comes up with four options.

2. Choose SNMP OIDs .

3. Click Add to display the Bulk Modification dialog. A screen appears to make the changes.

4. Select Starting IP address and Ending IP address from the drop-down box. This is the range where the modification is to be applied.

5. Click Browse button to select the scalar or table column OID that you want to change, from the MIBs displayed. This dialog will display all the MIBs implemented in the network devices. When you have selected the OID, click OK to exit from the dialog.

6. If the selected OID is an index column, you have to specify the instance value of the index column. For example to change the 3rd instance you would specify .3

7. You can modify the MIB node values with the same value for all the devices or by incrementing the specified value or by using $ prefixed macros.

8. Modifying SNMP OIDs with the specifie value

   • Select Value to specify a new value in the Value text field. When you specify the value, it will be substituted across all the devices.

   • Select increment if you want the specified value to be incremented for the specified range of ip address / port number.

   • • For nodes of type "string", the specified value will be incremented by appending numbers starting with 1.

     • For nodes of type ifPhysAddres, the value must be  must be 12 characters using the digits "1 to 9" and characters a to f and must be specified within single quotes followed by h, for example '1486b894f4e3'h.  

     • For nodes of type "Object Identifier", the value specified must be in the OID format, for example  ".1.3.6.1.4.1.2162.4.1"

9. Modifying SNMP OIDs using $ prefixed macros

   • Select Macro and  choose among the $ prefixed macros listed in the available options.

   • • $IP : The $IP assigns the agent IP Address for the corresponding OID value, across all or selected agents present in the network.

     • $Unique Name:The $Unique name assigns the device unique name for the corresponding OID value, across all or selected agents present in the network.

     • $Read Community: The $Read Community assigns the device read community name for the corresponding OID value, across all or selected agents present in the network.

     • $Write Community:The $Write Community assigns the device write community name for the corresponding OID value, across all or selected agents present in the network.

     • $Community : The $Community assigns the device Read:Write community name for the corresponding OID value, across all or selected agents present in the network.

     • $Port : The $Port assigns the agent port number for the corresponding OID value, across all or selected agents present in the network.

     • $SYSUPTIME: The $SYSUPTIME assigns the agent sysuptime value for the corresponding OID value, across all or selected agents present in the network.

     • $CURRENTTIME: The $CURRENTTIME assigns the agent current time for the corresponding OID value, across all or selected agents present in the network.

   • You can also prefix or suffix the $ variable with your own values such as 23$No, xxx$Community, $No123 etc.

9. Click OK to add the configuration to the list. When an entry is added to the list, the Modify and Delete options will be enabled.

   1. To modify an entry in the Bulk Modification list, select the entry and click Modify. Make the necessary changes and click OK.

   2. To delete an entry in the Bulk Modification list, select the entry and click Delete. The entry will be deleted from the list.

10. Click Modify to make the necessary modifications to the OID values.

Example

• Assume have added 10 devices using the Network Design Tool wizard with starting IP address : 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.10.

• Now you wish to change the value of the sysName to simulatortest in all the devices in the network.

• After completing steps 1 to 7, in step 8, you can specify the value simulatortest.

• Click OK to add the entry and click Finish to change the OID value in all the selected devices.