I’ve been searching high and low all over the internet for a “network mapper”, something that will find all the nodes on the network, and tell me where they are plugged in on which switch. However even after weeks of searching and even having started my own solution, there is still no hope.
This quest first started simple, get something that will find which ports on which switch go to which nodes. Well you’d think that a simple ARP and mac table gleaning from the switches along with some simple algorithms to find the relations would be all there was. Well you would be wrong, oh so wrong. No, for some reason Nodes A,B,C, and D which should be on Switch B, are showing up on Switches A and R!
Today I did find an application that almost, almost meets my needs. Solarwinds LANsurveyor, is a pretty slick application that scans you network and builds network maps. (It can even export them to Visio!) It also can hook into/launch *VNC application to make your remote computing easier. However the problem I have with it is the same as my own work, it doesn’t give accurate or consistent results as to what is plugged into where. So the search continues!
If any of you fellow techies know of any applications that do what I’m needing, let me know! I’d be super glad to hear it!
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