FAQs
Frequenty Asked Questions
Can I quickly test OpenL2M?
Yes, you can do a fairly quick Docker compose install to test. Look at “docker/test/README.txt” The create/add a device using the “Dummy” driver, and you can see how it looks and performs.
Why does it take a while to show the device basic views page?
This is a design decision. Everything is read in real-time from the device as you access it. I.e. Every time you go (back) to a switch, it needs to re-learn the device information. That makes it somewhat slower, but it also means you always have the current information. The Ethernet/LLDP tables are updated as you refresh, which should help with finding devices that were just connected (instead of some other tools, which only polls that data every so often, and thus have delays.)
Do you support SNMP v1?
No, SNMP v1 is an out-dated version, and does not support GetBulk calls. GetBulk significantly improves performance, and is extensively used in OpenL2M. (Note that GetBulk is not the same as an ‘snmpwalk’)
Do you support IP v6?
Yes and No. IPv6 is now fully supported from a data-collection perspective. We read data from the standard SNMP MIBs for IPv6 interface addresses and LLPD neighbors. Various API drivers can also read IPv6 data.
We do NOT (yet) support connecting to devices over IPv6.
What devices are supported and tested?
Please see this document
I get an error “502 Bad Gateway”, how do I fix this?
There is a timeout somewhere, either in Nginx or in the Gunicorn Python process. Please see the installation documents on how to fix this.
My HP switch does not ask to save changes?
Some HP Procurve/Aruba AOS-S switches do an automatic, implicit save after every SNMP set() call. This is unlike CLI access, where (some) switches require an explicit save (write mem).
For more see https://mibs.observium.org/mib/HP-SWITCH-BASIC-CONFIG-MIB/#hpSwitchSaveConfig
My Cisco switch does not show MAC address info using SNMP v3?
Cisco switches use the SNMP v3 Context field to “separate” data per vlan. Your switch needs to support the “show snmp context” command, and should show something similar to:
#show snmp context
vlan-1
vlan-2
vlan-11
vlan-12
...
vlan-1002
vlan-1003
vlan-1004
vlan-1005
If this looks OK, you need to issue the following command to get your snmp v3 user access to all contexts:
snmp-server group <your_v3_group> v3 auth context vlan- match prefix
How can I import devices from <name your NMS here>?
The Django command-line Python API is fully supported. You can write a custom stand-alone import script using whatever NMS API you have to read your device data and import into OpenL2M. See the ./scripts/example.py file for more details.
How do I debug OpenL2M?
This is described in Debugging
How do I configure my Cisco switch for Syslog messages over SNMP?
Regular Cisco IOS devices need a configuration similar to the one below, which allows for the 50 most recent syslog entries of “Informational” level and below to be available over SNMP. Note this can impact memory usage of the device. Please refer to your particular device documentation for more specifics.
logging history size 50
logging history informational
How do I request support for an unsupported device?
Please read Submitting tickets. Note that we will not entertain support requests for devices that are no longer supported by the manufacturer!