Searching Devices & Configuration

Contents

Overview

When the number of devices in your work environment becomes too many, it becomes difficult to manually spot a particular device from the inventory. Network Configuration Manager provides search utility to get the desired devices at the desired moment. This apart, the search utility enables you to search through the device configuration and look for specific words, strings, phrases or a combination of these in device configuration files.

This section explains about searching the

  1. Devices

  2. Device configuration

 

Searching Devices

You can make a search for a particular device or a group of devices among all the available devices in your inventory. When you enter a keyword in the search dialog to search for a device, the following five attributes are searched:

  1. Host Name

  2. IP

  3. Device Type

  4. Series

  5. Model

This search is basically a 'contains' search. If the keyword entered by you is present in any of the above fields, it will be returned as a search result.

 

To search devices,

  1. Go to the search dialog box located in the top right corner.

  2. Select the 'Devices' in the search box drop-down.

  3. Type the search keyword and hit 'Enter'.

 

Note: Search is case sensitive. So, use proper cases for search keywords.

 

A Note on Search Keywords

  1. For searching a device, you can enter a single word or multiple words, each word separated by a space. For example, if you type the word 'cisco' in the search dialog, all the devices that contain the word 'cisco' in any of the five fields mentioned above would be displayed in the search result. If this word is found in more than one field for the same device, the search result will still have only one entry but with highlights for all fields that matched.

  2. You can even enter more than one keyword for searching. For example, if you enter 'cisco router', the five fields pertaining to all the devices would be scanned. The fields that contain either 'cisco' or 'router' or both get displayed as search results. You can enter as many words as required, separating each word by a space.

 

Searching Device Configuration

You can search for a term or a phrase in the configuration files of the devices present in your inventory. This search is done on the current Startup and Running Configuration of the devices. Historical files and drafts are not included for search.

To search configuration,

  1. Go to the search dialog located in the top right corner

  2. Click on the search drop-down and select "Configuration"

  3. Enter the search keyword and hit 'Enter'

 

Single keyword Search

You can search for a single word in the configuration files. For example, if you wish to look for "snmp", all the current startup and running configurations of devices would be scanned and the files with entries "snmp" are listed as search result. You can view the configuration files containing your search keyword. The word searched by you is shown highlighted in the configuration file.

 

Searching for a Phrase in Configuration

You can search for a particular phrase in the configuration files. For example, if you look for "snmp-server community private RW" all the current startup and running configurations of devices would be scanned and the files with the phrase "snmp-server community private RW" (exactly matching all the words in order) are listed as search result.

You can view the configuration files containing your search phrase. The phrase searched by you is shown highlighted in the configuration file.

 

Note: To search for a phrase, enter the phrase within double quotes.

 

Combination of Words & Phrases

Your search keywords can even be a combination of words and phrases. Current Startup and Running Configuration files are scanned for the words or phrases or both and the search results are displayed accordingly. Matching keyword/phrases are shown highlighted in the configuration file.

 

Refining Configuration Search

Network Configuration Manager gives the option to refine the configuration search further by enabling you to search for a keyword or a phrase or both within the configuration files of certain specified devices or a group of devices. Even the option of searching only the current startup or current running configuration of a particular device or a group of devices, is available.

Note: The number of search results are displayed on top of the search results page. For device search, the number of device matches is shown at the top whereas for configuration search, the number of file matches is shown. The search results are displayed at the rate of 10 per page, with provision for navigating from page to page.

 

 

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