Real-time config notification / transfer status issue

a.bento

Hi All,

We recently upgraded to NCM 7.4 and noticed that our real-time configuration alerts for our network devices only sends one notification but doesn't send anymore after that.

We noticed that under the Transfer Status section of Configs, our network devices (after sending out a real-time notification) would continue to say "Downloading..." or "Waiting...". You will then need to cancel or clear complete the item to be able to do more real-time alerting after.

I have a case open with one of the techs but still have not resolve this issue after a week of reviewing. Wondering if anyone has seen this issue before and could assist with resolving this?

By the way, we have two pollers. One poller did not have NCM and was mentioned that it required it. After installing NCM on the additional poller, the issue still persists.

Thanks,

Andy

cnorborg

So, this sounds like two different problems that are related a bit.

Real-Time Config Alerts I believe are only sent when a change has been made to the configuration that is downloaded.   Guessing all of this part is working from your description.

However, if its getting stuck in "Downloading..." or "Waiting...", it looks as if you have a problem in downloading configs.   If a config can't be downloaded, NCM can't see that a change has been made, and an alert won't be triggered..

So, how do you have NCM set up to log into devices and download configs?    This would be in your settings under "NCM Settings" and "Connection Profiles" most likely.   My recommendation for this is to set it up to do everything (Execute Commands and Scripts, Config Request and Transfer Configs) via SSH2.   Your devices will have to be set up for SSH2 obviously, if they don't support that, falling back to Telnet is ok, but I'd avoid SSHv1 myself.

Then on your devices I'd recommend using "aaa new-method" and authenticating your devices either via a TACACS server or with local usernames/passwords.   I'd also recommend having it give the user you set up in Orion the ability to be at privilege level 15 right away.  You can do this with both local users by specifying their privilege, or with aaa by setting up "aaa authorization exec".

I'd use this sparingly, don't leave it on all the time, but you can go into "Advanced Settings" and turn on "Real-Time Config Change Detection" logging, as well as "Session-Tracing".  It will tell you there where your session trace files are stored.  This can help aid in diagnosing connection issues...