We now use ifName for this OS type, which fixes much of this.

Typical idiot vendor doing their own thing and ignoring industry standards.

Hi Adam,

I received this from our ALU rep earlier today. I can send you through the MIBs if you want them.

For port_descr you will need to load our MIBs. I have attached them. The specific MIB is TIMETRA-PORT-MIB. The same most likely goes for JNPR, i.e. you are polling the OID from a JNPR specific MIB and we are not responding

For ifDescr, we return:

1) For Port: Port/Port-Type/Description

2) For Routed Interface: Interface-Name/Interface-Type/Interface-Description

ifDescr OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX DisplayString (SIZE (0..255))
MAX-ACCESS read-only
STATUS current
DESCRIPTION
"A textual string containing information about the
interface. This string should include the name of the
manufacturer, the product name and the version of the
interface hardware/software."
::=

If you just want the port pull ifName

ifName OBJECT-TYPE
SYNTAX DisplayString
MAX-ACCESS read-only
STATUS current
DESCRIPTION
"The textual name of the interface. The value of this
object should be the name of the interface as assigned by
the local device and should be suitable for use in commands
entered at the device's `console'. This might be a text
name, such as `le0' or a simple port number, such as `1',
depending on the interface naming syntax of the device. If
several entries in the ifTable together represent a single
interface as named by the device, then each will have the
same value of ifName. Note that for an agent which responds
to SNMP queries concerning an interface on some other
(proxied) device, then the value of ifName for such an
interface is the proxied device's local name for it.

If there is no local name, or this object is otherwise not
applicable, then this object contains a zero-length string."
::=

ifName could probably work. These are similar to the Ericcsson SmartEdge boxes in that you make the "ip interface" and bind it to a physical port. I will probably delete/hide/disable the logical ports and monitor physical ones only to keep it clean.

ifName.1 = system
ifName.2 = INTERNAL-AE_br01.sto01
ifName.3 = IP TRANSIT: Carrier1
ifName.4 = IP TRANSIT: Carrier2
ifName.136347648 = 4/1/1
ifName.136380416 = 4/1/2
ifName.136413184 = 4/1/3
ifName.136445952 = 4/1/4
ifName.136478720 = 4/1/5
ifName.136511488 = 4/1/6
ifName.136544256 = 4/1/7
ifName.138510336 = 4/2/3
ifName.138543104 = 4/2/4
ifName.138575872 = 4/2/5
ifName.138608640 = 4/2/6
ifName.138641408 = 4/2/7
ifName.138674176 = 4/2/8
ifName.138706944 = 4/2/9

Let me know if you'd like me to pinhole the ACL so you can run any direct tests on this box if it helps.

What are these devices reporting for ifName? We might have to hardcode this OS to use ifName instead of ifDescr (lots of vendors put useless shit into ifDescr, windows puts the NIC's manufacturer and model in there!)

Frustrating. They seem to stick any description into the ifDescr. Quotation marks are required for anything with a space in it and they are escaping them in the SNMP description.

Are there any config knobs I can use to over-ride this inside Observium?

*A:pr01.sto01>config>port# info 

----------------------------------------------

        description "INTERNAL: br01.sto01 || XE-4/1/1 || lag0"

        ethernet

        exit

        no shutdown

----------------------------------------------

*A:pr01.sto01>config>port# 

ifDescr.138510336 = 4/2/3, 10-Gig Ethernet

ifDescr.138543104 = 4/2/4, 10-Gig Ethernet

ifDescr.138575872 = 4/2/5, 10-Gig Ethernet

ifDescr.138608640 = 4/2/6, 10-Gig Ethernet

ifDescr.138641408 = 4/2/7, 10-Gig Ethernet, \"INTERNAL: br01.sto01 || XE-4/1/1 || lag0\"

ifDescr.138674176 = 4/2/8, 10-Gig Ethernet, \"INTERNAL: br01.sto01 || XE-4/1/2 || lag0\"

ifDescr.138706944 = 4/2/9, 10-Gig Ethernet, \"INTERNAL: br01.sto01 || XE-4/1/3 || lag0\"

ifAlias.138510336 = 10-Gig Ethernet

ifAlias.138543104 = 10-Gig Ethernet

ifAlias.138575872 = 10-Gig Ethernet

ifAlias.138608640 = 10-Gig Ethernet

ifAlias.138641408 = INTERNAL: br01.sto01 || XE-4/1/1 || lag0

ifAlias.138674176 = INTERNAL: br01.sto01 || XE-4/1/2 || lag0

ifAlias.138706944 = INTERNAL: br01.sto01 || XE-4/1/3 || lag0

You can close this. Just saw the config on the box and they have used the description as the interface name instead of calling it something sensible and using the "description" for the description.

Sigh...

Thanks

Ah sorry – we use "INTERNAL-AE" instead of "INTERNAL" to prevent the double count of LAGs in the aggregated graphs.

The pipes in the descriptions are used by some other internal tools here. We have a Juniper environment as well that we use the same syntax on.

The parsing of the description for the transit/peering/core interfaces works fine. I have included a couple of screenshots that may make what I am trying to report a little clearer.

You probably can't have a dash in the port-type in the description.

Descriptions are in ifAlias, because back when the MIBs were written, people were stupid. ifDescr is actually the name of the interface, and ifName is usually the "shortest unique name the device understands for the interface".

In the output above :

[ifAlias] => INTERNAL-AE: br01.sto01 || lag 100 || xxGbps

Seems to be fine except for the - (and that our parsing format doesn't use ||, I assume you have some custom code to do that?)

Also if desired I can provide access to a pre-production device to a whitelisted IP address for testing.

Discovery debug attached. Some details obfuscated (names).