How to use Group Custom properties for creating a group

Hi All,

Is there a way to use Group's custom properties to populate a group?

Say, I have Site A, which have routers, switches, firewalls and each have a different group, SiteA -routers, SiteA-Switches, SiteA-Firewalls, resp.

And I want a group "SiteA -All Groups", which could contain all the 3 groups of routers, switches and firewalls.

I believe, this would be simple if say I could use a query " If Group name contains Site A" or even better if "Group_location (i.e. a group custom property) is SiteA "

Any suggestions on how to do it?

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Accepted answers

mesverrum

Unfortunately there is no option to dynamically add groups to other groups, I recall reading a post a long time ago that the devs were concerned about the possibility of having groups recursively adding to each other and causing performance issues. As it is, having a large number of dynamic groups can pretty much cripple the web UI for some customers as I have seen in many cases where people programmatically created hundreds of groups.

-Marc Netterfield

Loop1 Systems: SolarWinds Training and Professional Services

LinkedIN: Loop1 Systems
Facebook: Loop1 Systems
Twitter: @Loop1Systems

All comments

yaquaholic

Hi amrita1690

Absolutely, there is!

You were so close to finding it, as well!

It all depends where the custom property is assigned. If it is a node custom property, select Node from the dropdown (that you circled blue on the screenshot, in your post).

Then your custom properties will be available in the Orion Object drop down box, below is an example with my own "Location" node custom property:

Then set the criteria to suit, i.e. Location starts with "Lon-DC-".

The means that all devices with Nodes.Location set to "Lon-DC-<anything>" will belong to this group.

amrita1690

Thanks !!!

I actually want to use the custom properties of a group and not of a node, as the requeriement is group nesting based on the groups' custom properties.

So, a group contains all the group whose location (a group custom property) is Site A.

In the below screenshot the three custom properties are shown while creating a group as all three are of "group" type and node type.

But, the same group options are not there in the Dynamic Query Builder

mesverrum

-Marc Netterfield

Loop1 Systems: SolarWinds Training and Professional Services

LinkedIN: Loop1 Systems
Facebook: Loop1 Systems
Twitter: @Loop1Systems

yaquaholic

Hi amrita1690,

As mesverrum said, it doesn’t appear to be possible.

I did some testing myself and I cannot get any group custom property, from within the group definition.

The logical way to proceed is to assign these a node custom properties, defining Location, Site and View to each node.

Then use dynamic queries to create the sub groups, which are manually assigned to the master groups.

Fixing this will probably feel like a bit of a step backwards, from where you are right now or where you wanted to be, but getting it right initially will simplify everything afterwards.

Sorry I didn’t have better news for you.

amrita1690

Thanks, mesverrum !

amrita1690

Thanks, yaquaholic !