Cisco local interface monitor

Cisco Local Interface MIB is an extension of Interface MIB and gives more detailed information about the network traffic on a Cisco device. It is based on OLD-CISCOINTERFACES-MIB. The monitor can be created on Cisco devices running pre 10.2 IOS version and it uses BMC ProactiveNet Analytics Auto Discovery Framework. The Auto Discovery engine discovers all available managed object instances available on a given device during monitor instance creation. After discovery, ProactiveServer automatically creates child level instances of Cisco Local Interface MIB monitor for each of the devices.

Based on the Auto Discovery Poll Period, ProactiveServer periodically polls the specified device to determine if new instances are to be added or existing instances are to be updated or removed. Auto-created Cisco Local Interface instances are automatically deleted, when the parent is deleted.

The following table lists the monitored attributes of a Cisco Local Interface monitor.

Attribute	Description
Availability (%)	Availability indicates whether interface is available or not. By default, availability is reported as 100% if Admin state is “up” or “down” and Operational status state is “up”. Availability state can be configured using the monitor configuration file CiscoLocalInterface.conf in ‘pw/monitors/monitors/CiscoLocalInterface’ directory.
Data Availability (%)	Indicates whether interface is collecting data or not.
Out Bits (b/s)	Five-minute exponentially decayed moving average of output bits per second.
In bits (b/s)	Five-minute exponentially decayed moving average of input bits per second.
CRC (pkts/sec)	Number of input packets that had Cyclic Redundancy Checksum errors.
Collisions (pkts/sec)	Number of output collisions detected on this interface.
In Giants (pkts/sec)	Number of input packets that were larger than the physical media permitted.
In IP Octets (%)	Percentage of IP Octets received on the interface expressed in the available bandwidth.
In IP Pkts (pkts/sec)	IP Protocol input Packet count.
In Pkts (pkts/sec)	Five minute exponentially decayed moving average of input packets per second.
In Runts (pkts/sec)	Number of packets input those were smaller than the allowable physical media permitted.
Input Que Drops (pkts)	Number of packets dropped because the input queue was full.
Misaligned (pkts/sec)	Number of input packets which were misaligned.
Out IP Octets (%)	Percentage of IP Octets transmitted out of the interface in the available bandwidth.
Out IP Pkts (pkts/sec)	IP Protocol output Packet count.
Out Pkts (pkts/sec)	Five-minute exponentially decayed moving average of output packets per second.
Output Que Drops (pkts)	Number of packets dropped because the output queue was full.
Over Run (pkts/sec)	Count of input that arrived too quickly for the hardware to receive.

Configuring a Cisco Local Interface monitor

The following table describes the information required during configuration of the Cisco Local Interface monitor.

Configuration information	Description
Input fields on the Configuration tab
CiscoLocalInterface	Specify the instance name for the child monitor (cisco local interface) at parent level. Default Instance Name, $(IF_DESCR) is displayed. Edit the Instance Name field by either modifying the template provided or by entering any value. All the configuration, control and dynamic attributes of the child monitor (cisco local interface) are available as macros; it is used instead of the Instance Name. You can change the default Instance Name by editing the monitor defaults for a monitor. If a dynamic attribute is not provided as part of the Instance Name at the parent level, instance name will be set as name value pair of all the dynamic attributes separated by comma. Example: INSTANCE_ID=1,IF_IP_ADDRESS=192.168.3.210,IF_SLOT=0,IF_PORT=0,IF SPEED=100000000,IF_PORT_NAME=null,IF_ALIAS=## FastEther Interface 0/0 connected to BLR-LAN ##,IF_DESCR=FastEthernet0/0
Tag	Specify tag value to search or group the objects. You can enter multiple name-value pairs, text, or include both (name-value pair and text). This gives you the option to group objects in different forms. Click icon + to select a default tag class. The Enter Tag Details screen opens. Select Tag Class from the drop-down list and enter a tag value, click Add to append tag class and value. Click Finish. The tag specified by you is not considered as a default class. You cannot enter special characters &"/<>' in the tag field. Editing Tag Value on Enter Tag Details screen: Select a tag value and click Edit. Make the necessary modifications in Tag Value text box and click Set to add the changes. Deleting a Tag Value on Enter Tag Details screen: Select a tag value and click Delete. Click Yes to delete the tag value.
Source Agent	Specify the name/IP address of the ProactiveAgent to host the new monitor instance.
Port	Specify the port number on which the SNMP agent is running..
Community String	Specify the read community string of the SNMP agent. Default string is 'public'.
SNMP Retries	The number of retries. Default is 2.
SNMP Timeout (sec)	Specify the timeout period to be set for the SNMP communication page. Default is 2 seconds.
SNMP Version	Version of the SNMP protocol. Available SNMP versions are v1, v2c, and v3.
Use IfEntry	Select check box to use IfEntry. By default, this option is not selected. IfEntry is used for SNMP v1 to determine the speed of the interface. For SNMP v2 and v3, the extended MIB IFXEntry is used to determine speed of the interface.
System-populated fields
Delay	Amount of delay in microseconds of the interface. Used by IGRP.
If #	Unique number associated with each interface.
Speed	Bandwidth (bits per second) available to the interface. For interfaces with varying bandwidth, an approximate bandwidth is displayed.
Interface Type	Returns the type of interface.
Keep Alive	Boolean whether keep alive is enabled on this interface.
Line Protocol	Boolean whether interface line protocol is up or not.
Loading Factor	Loading factor of the interface. Used by IGRP.
Reliability	Reliability of the interface. Used by IGRP.
Reset #	Number of times the interface is internally reset.
Restart #	Number of times interface needs to be completely restarted.
Status Change Reason	Reason for interface’s last status change.
Time Recorded	Time stamp of the interface or when it was created.
Control tab
Collect Data	Select/clear check box to enable/disable data collection for the monitored component. By default, data collection is enabled (check box selected).
Statistics Poll Interval	Specify the time interval between two consecutive statistical data polls. Default is 5 minutes.
Statistics Poll Timeout	Specify the time-out period for each poll of statistical data. Default is 2 minutes.
Configuration Poll Interval	Specify the time interval between two consecutive configuration data polls. Default is 24 hours (One day).
Configuration Poll Timeout	Specify the time-out period for each poll of configuration data. Default is 10 minutes.
Auto Discovery Poll Interval	Specify the time interval between two consecutive Auto Discovery polls. Default is 24 hours (One day).
Auto Discovery Poll	Specify the time-out period for each Auto Discovery Poll. If no data is
Timeout	available at the end of this interval, system records zero availability and proceeds with the next scheduled poll. Default is 1 minute.
Group tab
Group Membership	This allows you to add a device and its monitors to one or more groups. Optionally, you may associate the device with a group. A group is used to logically organize the devices and monitors by department, geographic area, or service. Assigning a device to a group also allows the system administrator to restrict or allow access to certain devices. To associate the device with a group, select the group name here.
SNMPV3 Details tab ^a
User Name (Security Name)	Specify the user name to access the SNMP agent.
Authorization Protocol	Select the authorization protocol (MD5 or SHA) to use for v3 only.
Authorization Password	Specify the authorization password to access the SNMP agent for v3 only.
Privacy Protocol	Select the privacy protocol (for v3 only) to use.
Privacy Password	Specify the privacy password for v3 only.
^a This tab is enabled for use only when 'v3' is selected as the SNMP Version in the Configuration tab.

Special notes

Some interfaces report wrong speed values and hence monitor instance discards data. This can be verified by checking More Info feature, which reports the reason for data being discarded. In such cases, edit the Speed of the interface and set the correct value. Once the speed is edited, it will not be updated even if the speed of the interface is changed.

Once speed of an interface is edited, then you cannot rollback to the original interface speed.

Instance naming convention

Given Below is the hierarchy of how an auto Discovered instance is named:

ifAlias (if available)
ifLocalDescription (if Available)
ifDescription (if Available)
Interface ID

If Slot and Port Details are available then the same are shown as bracketed text. For example, IfDescription: "IPLC", Slot: 3, and Port: 2. The instance name will be shown as "IPLC (S#3;P#2)".

To recreate deleted instances

This is a unique feature of Cisco Local Interface MIB monitor.

All Auto Discovery-enabled monitors have a special feature wherein auto-created instances can be deleted and later be recreated whenever required. Deleting an autocreated monitor instance is the same as deleting any other BMC ProactiveNet Analytics monitor. The Auto Discovery Engine marks such Interfaces instances as deleted and removes them from ProactiveServer. But the engine still retains all unique information of the monitor instance so that it can be recreated later whenever required.

When a deleted monitor instance is recreated, data collected previously by the deleted monitor is lost and cannot be retrieved.

To recreate instances from the Administration Console:

Right-click the Cisco Local Interface MIB folder on the selected device.
Select Recreate Deleted Instances.
The Recreate Deleted Instance window is displayed. The window lists all
Interface instances that were deleted since the Cisco Local Interface was created.
Select the Distributed Cisco Local interface instances to be recreated.
Click Recreate.

Automatic instance removal

If an instance is continuously not discovered over a predefined period of time (default is 7 days), the auto created instance is removed from ProactiveServer. The period of time before an unavailable instance is removed can be configured using the property pronet.autodiscovery.cleanuptime in pronet.conf file (<ProactiveServerinstalldirectory>/pronto/conf). The period of time must be specified as minutes and by default this property is set to 604800 mins, i.e. 7 days.

Additional configuration and setup issues

The following table presents details about additional configuration and setup issues for the Cisco Local Interface monitor.

Issue	Details
Monitor configuration	No additional configuration requirements for this monitor. Maintain the default configuration of ProactiveNet.
External setup	No external setup requirements for this monitor.
External dependencies	This monitor uses AdventNet’s SNMP library to communicate with the device. SNMP Agent must be running on the target machine.
ProactiveAgent dependencies	ProactiveAgent installation on the monitored host is not mandatory. Monitor instance can be created on any ProactiveAgent.

Availability statuses

Interface Availability will be based on the value retrieved for interface’s Admin and Operational Status. By default Interface Availability will be reported as 100% when both Admin and Operational Status is “up”. The Admin and Operational Status states for which Interface Availability is reported as 100% is configurable using the monitor config file CiscoLocalInterface.conf. Given below are the possible states of Admin and Operational Status:

ifAdminStatus States

Value	State	Description
1	Up	Interface is up
2	Down	Interface is down
3	Testing	Testing state indicates that no operational packets can be passed

ifOperStatus States

Value	State	Description
1	Up	If ifAdminStatus is up then ifOperStatus should be up
2	Down	If ifAdminStatus is down then ifOperStatus should be down
3	Testing	Testing state indicates that no operational packets can be passed
4	Unknown	Unknown state
5	Dormant	Dormant state indicates that the relevant interface is not actually in a condition to pass packets (i.e., it is not 'up') but is in a "pending" state, waiting for some external event.
6	notPresent	notPresent state is a refinement on the down state, which indicates that the relevant interface is down specifically because some component (typically, a hardware component) is not present in the managed system.
7	lowerLayerDown	lowerLayerDown state is also a refinement on the down state. This new state indicates that this interface runs "on top of" one or more other interfaces and that this interface is down specifically because one or more of these lower-layer interfaces are down.