Getting Started with Intermapper

 

Welcome to Intermapper! This guide will help you get a quick start with the software.

Training Sessions

For detailed overviews of Intermapper’s features, be sure to attend our weekly feature tours or check out our four, comprehensive training sessions that can help you get started with your software:

Session 1: Getting started with the basics of Intermapper

Session 2: Learning how to build a map 

Demo Maps

When the initial splash screen opens, click Try out the Demo Maps; you will see the Demo Main Map. Although this map has fictitious data, it highlights the real capabilities of Intermapper.

1.  The Demo Main Map has several icons representing devices. They indicate offices throughout the city. Their color represents their status: green is good, yellow is a warning, orange is an alarm, blinking red means something is down.
2. The links (represented by straight lines on the map) connecting the offices represent a physical connection between them.
3. You may see the traffic ants (dotted lines along the links) or yellow or orange halos behind those links which indicate traffic flowing on those links.
4. Open the strip chart window that shows traffic flowing through those links with Windows > Charts > Internet Bandwidth.
5. The Map List window shows all the maps that are available on your Intermapper server. Double click a map’s name to open the map in its own window.

Building a Network Map with Auto-Discovery

Intermapper can automatically scan your network to learn what’s there.

1. Create a new map by choosing File > New Map. Give it a name (such as “Test Map 1”) and click Next. You’ll see the New Map window appear.
2. Click the Auto-Discovery button, and then click Next. You’ll see the Automatic Device Discovery window appear.
3. Enter the address of the starting point. Intermapper defaults to using the local router, switch, or your own workstation. If you know the SNMP read-only community string for that device, enter it. All the other default values are fine. Click Start Discovery to begin.
4. Let auto-discovery complete or stop it after a few dozen devices have been found. To stop auto-discovery, click Cancel in the top of the map’s window.
5. Intermapper shows all the devices in a list with their IP address, DNS name (if available), probe type, and condition.
6.  Change from the list to the Map View by choosing View > Map. This shows how the elements are connected. Devices are represented as rectangles. The network ovals represent the subnets that they attach to (a subnet is simply a range of IP addresses).
7. The device icon color represents its state: blinking red, orange, or yellow indicates problems. You must acknowledge them (see #10 below) to make them stop blinking.

Manually Adding Devices to Your Map

You can add devices manually by typing or pasting a list of DNS names or IP addresses. 

1. Create a new map and give it the name “Test Map 2.” Click the Manual Entry button, and then click Create, or add devices to an existing map by choosing Insert > Device. In either case, you’ll see the Add Devices window.
2. Enter a few IP addresses or DNS names and click Add. Note that the devices appear on the map and turn green in a few moments, indicating that Intermapper is already testing them.
3. You can also manually scan a subnet. Select one of the network ovals and choose Insert > Scan Network. Accept the defaults, and Intermapper will scan for devices that have addresses in that subnet range. 

Refining the Map

Intermapper’s Auto-Discovery and Auto-Layout do a basic job of showing what is connected to your network. You can make the map more informative by using the following tips:

1. Unlock the map to make it editable. Click the padlock icon in the upper-left corner to lock and unlock the map (when it’s locked, you’ll avoid inadvertent changes).
2. Drag items around to match the way you think of your network. Lines between devices “rubberband” to preserve the interconnections. Remember that the network ovals represent subnets (address ranges), and act as the connecting points between devices.
3. Change the label that appears in the rectangle for a device to include more descriptive information. Choose Format > Label (Ctl/Cmd-L) to see and edit the current template for that device’s label.
4. Change a device’s icon from a rectangle to a different icon or shape. Select one or many icons and choose Format > Icon to pick a new icon.
5. Add a background image to position devices as you like. Simply drag a PNG, JPEG, or GIF image into the map window to add it, or choose Edit > Map Settings.
6. Align devices by selecting them, and choosing Format > Align. Use the other options in the Format > Arrange menu to make bigger changes to the layout.

Creating Sub-Maps

With Intermapper, you can create top-level maps that show an overview of your network and sub-maps that contain the details. Icons on the top map indicate the most serious condition, and double-clicking the icon drills down to show the sub-map.

1. Open a map’s window (use the “Test Map 1” map you created above) and position it next to the Map List window so you can see both.
2. Drag a map name from the Map List to the Test Map 1 map window. You’ll see an icon appear on the Test Map 1—this is the sub-map’s icon.
3. Drill down into the sub-map by double-clicking its icon. You’ll see the sub-map’s window open.

Using Probes for More Fine-Grained Testing

Although ping tests are useful, Intermapper’s real power comes from its probes—software plug-ins that collect information from a device to show more about its performance. Select a device and choose Monitor > Set Probe. You will see a window with categories of probes on the left. Things to try:

1. Automatic: This probe uses either Pings or SNMP queries to monitor the device. If the device speaks SNMP, Intermapper will use the SNMP traffic probe to query the device. If not, Intermapper will ping the device and report if it ever goes down.
2. SNMP Traffic: This probe monitors traffic on routers, switches, etc. It works with nearly every vendor’s network equipment.
3. Network Devices: These probes monitor a variety of other equipment, such as Cisco, Apple, APC, or other UPS vendors, and more.
4. Servers-Standard: Probes for standards-based servers, such as mail (SMTP, POP, IMAP), web (HTTP & HTTPS), LDAP, Radius, DNS, etc.
5. Servers-Proprietary: Vendor-specific probes for Barracuda, Citrix, Big Brother, Microsoft, Nagios, and many others.

Status Windows

A status window shows granular detail about a device or a link without occupying a lot of screen space. To see these details, right-click a device and choose Status Window.

1. A device stats window shows the DNS name, IP address, uptime and response time, and other data collected by its probe.
2. A Link Status window shows detailed information about that interface, its INFINDEX and MAC address, as well as traffic (send and receive) data.
3. To open a status window temporarily, click and hold on a device—the window will pop up and go away when you release the mouse.

Strip Charts

A strip chart allows you to view these data values over time. View the strip charts from the Window > Charts menu. Data for strip charts comes from a status window; any underlined value can go into a strip chart. To create a strip chart:

1. Open a status window as described above.
2. Click any underlined value and select Create Chart. You’ll see a new chart window open up.
3. Drag other underlined values to the new window to add them to the chart.

Alerts and Notifications

A notifier is the way Intermapper alerts someone about an event. Every time Intermapper detects a change in a device state (from OK, Critical, Warning, Alarm, Down, or some other state), it can trigger a notification/alert. Intermapper has notifiers for sounds, sending email, pages and SMS messages, and running scripts.

1. Create a notifier from Edit > Server Settings. Scroll to the Notifier List, and click the + at the lower left corner.
2. Examine various notification types: email, text/SMS messages, dial-up pager, sending a trap or syslog, or running a command-line script.
3. The Notifier Schedule governs when alerts will be sent.
4. To attach a notifier, select one or more devices. Choose Monitor > Notifiers, and check the boxes for those state transitions that should trigger an alert.

Acknowledge Outages and Problems

When Intermapper detects a problem, it changes the color of the icon of the affected device to yellow, orange, or red, depending on the severity. This makes it easy to see where the trouble is. If you can’t correct the problem right away, it becomes difficult to notice when new problems occur.

Intermapper allows you to acknowledge a device, which turns the icon to blue to show that someone has taken responsibility for it. To acknowledge a device:

1. Select the device to acknowledge.
2. You can select multiple devices or all devices on a map (Ctl/Cmd-A) and acknowledge them together. This is convenient when a lot of events occur at one time.
3. Choose Monitor > Acknowledge and enter an acknowledgement message in the window that appears. This does three things:
   • Turns the icon blue to indicate it has been acknowledged
   • Stops subsequent repeated notifications
   • Records the acknowledgement message, login name and IP address of the person who acknowledges the device to the Event Log.

For further questions on using Intermapper, don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected]