Phase 4: Post-process the discovery information

After an IP Manager probes all seed-file and autodiscovered candidate systems, it performs postprocessing. Postprocessing tasks include the reconciliation of system data objects and the clean up of chassis, SNMPAgent, IP, IPv6, and DuplicateIP objects. The message “Postprocessing topology ...” displayed in the Discovery Status section of an IP Manager’s Discovery Progress window indicates when postprocessing tasks are in progress.

The postprocessing code in the IP Manager creates Layer 2 (data link) and Layer 3 (network) connectivity between the systems in the topology. The code bases the connectivity on IP networks, standard protocols, and vendor-specific discovery protocols.

The postprocessing functions that are performed by the IP Manager include:

• Mapping IP, IPv6, and MAC endpoints in the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) cache to the appropriate systems. For non-SNMP systems, create IP, IPv6, and MAC endpoints and layer them over a physical interface. Because non-SNMP systems are discovered, the postprocessing code creates an artificial physical interface for each IP (v4 or v6) address that is associated with the system.

• Removing MAC endpoints that do not belong to any systems in the topology. Any MAC endpoint that is bridged by a port but is not hosted by any system is removed.

• Managing ports. Any port that is BridgedVia a MAC is set to managed.

• Converting IP objects to DuplicateIP objects. Any IP object that is discovered is converted to a DuplicateIP object.

• Converting IPv6 objects to DuplicateIPv6 objects. Any IPv6 object that is discovered is converted to a DuplicateIPv6 object.

• Resolving duplicate devices, as explained in IP Manager User Guide.

• Creating connections by using the collected bridge-forwarding information: create cables between ports and interfaces, create trunk cables between ports, and remove MAC endpoints that are bridged by access ports from the BridgedVia relationships of other ports.

• Creating trunk cables by using the collected Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) information.

• Creating network connections to represent WAN, or logical, connections.

• Creating any user-defined connections that are specified in the user-defined-connections.conf file.

• Creating partitions and naming them in accordance to the names that are specified in the user-defined partition.conf file.

• Creating redundancy group objects by combining group-member objects.

• Setting the DisplayNames for the discovered objects.

  The user-defined-connections.conf and partition.conf files are located in the BASEDIR/smarts/conf/discovery directory. The IP Manager Reference Guide describes the configuration parameters in these files and provides instructions on modifying the parameters.