This discussion has been locked. The information referenced herein may be inaccurate due to age, software updates, or external references.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a similar question you can start a new discussion in this forum.

Transient Status with Unlimited duration

I've been under the understanding for years now that when IPAM scans an IP, if it does not respond, IPAM would place the IP into the Transient state. It would stay in the Transient state, as long as it didn't respond to ping, for the duration specified in the Subnet Scan settings. If the option of Unlimited Duration was checked, then they would stay in Transient indefinitely, until it started responding to ping again, at which point it would be returned to Used.

However, on this page:

Configure subnet scan settings manually

It says the following:

IPAM continuously scans all managed IP addresses on your network. If a device fails to respond to any SNMP or ICMP requests for the duration entered here, IPAM will change the status of the unresponsive IP address from Used to Available. Any associated custom attribute is overwritten. If Unlimited Duration is selected, unresponsive devices will retain the status of Used until manually updated.

This seems to contradict my understanding. This seems to remove any condition in which an IP would be automatically placed into Transient state.

Can someone clear things up for me? I want it to be as I thought I understood it - I have checked the Unlimited Duration, because in my Enterprise environment, I NEVER want IPAM to change an IP from any status to 'Available' on its own, but if an IP stops responding, I'd like it to automatically move it to Transient state, and to stay transient, until it either gets manually set to Available, or starts responding to ping again.

Running version 4.3.1, if that makes any difference.

Thanks,

  • I'm extra confused, because I have some IP's that have a 'Last Response' date of May 2018 and are in the Transient state, as I'd expect, but i have other IP's that have a 'Last Response' date of 2015, but still show as USED. Doesn't seem consistent.

  • Solarwinds says that Transient state is designed to be used for devices that are dynamically assigned and typically power on and off. So when using the Transient option, a device will change status from Used to Transient. Then if the set transient time expires, it will change to Available. So then when selecting the Unlimited Duration, it states that Transient time period is no longer checked so devices stay as Used. It's like the option of how many days a device keeps a DHCP assigned address before releasing it.

    Unlimited Duration does not mean unlimited status in Transient state. It means it will always stay as Used.

    I do agree it is confusing. You can set your Transient state to the highest value which should hopefully achieve what you want.

  • Has anything changed? Because I swear it used to work as I thought, where it would move IP's to transient if they stopped responding, even though I have the 'Unlimited Duration' selected (which it has been for years).

  • I don't know, I've never used the Unlimited Duration setting. But I can't see why they would change the functionality of that option.