Device Groups

This documentation applies to NMS version 5.4. An online version of the software can be found here.

The Device Groups page enables you to manage the device groups that segment the devices in your network for user access, reports, and alerts. You should outline your device groups to best suit your security and report requirements. If you plan your implementation strategy appropriately and create device groups and devices using logical naming conventions, auto-grouping rules enable you to automatically assign devices to device groups. You can manually pin (add) devices to groups from the Device Manager when you create or edit devices or you can pin devices to device groups from the Device Groups page.

To access the Device Groups page from the navigation bar, click the Devices menu, select Grouping, and then select Device Groups.

images/download/attachments/10651697/devicegroups.png

Manage Device Group Hierarchy

The device group hierarchy appears on the left. First level device groups appear in alphabetical order under the parent All Device Groups. All devices are automatically added to the All Device Groups device group. Check boxes enable you to simultaneously manage the metadata values, drag and drop, and delete multiple device groups.

Select the device group under which to add a new device group.
Click Add Device Group to display the Add Device Group pop-up.
1. In the Device Group Name field, enter the device group name.
2. Click Save on the pop-up.
- Click to edit the values for the metadata attributes you want to associate with the device group. See the Manage Metadata Values section below.
- Click to edit a device group name.
Drag and drop device groups to different places in the hierarchy.
- Click to delete a device group. When you delete a device group that has associated policies, a message appears to inform you that associated policies will be deleted.
1. On the message, click View Policies to display the Policy Association pop-up that lists the policies associated to the device group.
2. Select the policies to move and click Reassign Selected or click Reassign All to display a pop-up that enables you to select the device group to which to move the policies.
3. On the pop-up, click the drop-down and select the device group to which to move the policies and click OK.
4. Click Done to move the policies.

Manage Metadata Values

The images/download/attachments/10651697/metadata.png in the device group hierarchy Actions column provides access to the Edit Metadata pop-up that enables you to manage the values for the metadata attributes you want to associate with the device group. The Metadata Schema page enables you to manage metadata attributes.

Click in the Actions column to display the Edit Metadata pop-up.
Click to make the Values field editable.
In the Values field, enter the value for the attribute with the applicable attribute type specific format.
- Date/Time: Must have a valid date and time format and can use natural language processing such as; 3 Thursdays ago at 5pm.
- Integer: Type: Value must be numeric.
- IP Address: Must use one of the following formats:
  - IPv4: 172.16.254.1
  - IPv6: 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:8:1 or 10.1.1.100 or 10.1.1.100/16
- Latitude and Longitude: Must have valid coordinates that are decimal values: -90.00 to 90.00 values for Latitude and -180.00 to 180.00 for Longitude
- MAC Address: Must use the following format: 0A:00:27:00:00:00
- Text (Validated): Supports up to 1024 UTF-16 characters including PCRE regex that uses preg-match (perform a regular expression match) to validate the regular expression you enter against the attribute definition from the Metadata Schema page.
- Text: Supports up to 65K UTF-16 varchar characters.
- URL: Complete the following fields:
  - Link Display Text: Enter the text to display in reports as the link caption.
  - URL: Enter the URL. Must have FQDN validation, supports username prefix, ports, protocol AND ?/& for HTTP GET variables, and optional additional PCRE regex for validation, and must be fewer than 255 characters.
Click Update to save the value.

Device Group Membership Rules

Click on a device group in the hierarchy to display the device group membership rules and the list of devices that are members of the device group on the right. Membership rules enable you to automatically add devices to the device group. Rules are case sensitive and you can use Perl Regular Expressions to create rules.

Click Add Rule or to display the Add/Edit Device Group Membership Rule pop-up. Each rule requires only one field. If you populate several fields per rule the criteria you enter in the row are cumulative.

Example: Enter Remote in the Name field and enter ^192\.168 in the Mgt IP field in the same rule criteria row. The device must have both Remote in the name AND an IP address that starts with 192.168 to be added to the device group.
- Device Name - Enter the name of devices to add to the group (wild cards are implied).
- Device Description - Enter the description of the devices to add to the group.
- Management IP Address - Enter the IP address of the devices to add to the group (^192\.168 adds all devices whose IP address starts with 192.168).
- sysDescr - Enter the text you get when you SNMP walk the sysDescr OID.
- sysContact – Enter the text you get when you SNMP walk the sysContact OID.
- sysLocation - Enter the text you get when you SNMP walk the sysLocation OID.
- SysName – Enter the text you get when you SNMP walk the sysName OID.
- sysObjectID - Enter the text you get when you SNMP walk the sysObjectID OID.
Click Save to save the rule criteria.
Repeat these steps to add additional rules to use the OR Boolean.

Example: Enter Remote in the Name field in the first row in the rule table then click Create Rule. Enter ^192\.168 in the second row in the rule table. The device can have either Remote in the name OR an IP address that starts with 192.168 to be added to the device group.
Click Apply Rules to add the devices that meet the rule criteria to the device group.

Device Group Membership

The Membership section displays the devices that are members of the device group. When you pin a device to a device group, rules do not affect the device membership. You must manually unpin a pinned device to remove its membership. When a rule adds a device to a device group, if you change the rule, the devices that were added by the rule can automatically be removed from the device group.

- Indicates the device is a member that was pinned to the device group at this level.
- Indicates the device is a member that was pinned to a lower level device group.
– Indicates the device is a member that was added by a device group membership rule at this level.
Indicates the device is a member that was added by a device group membership rule at a lower level.

Membership Management

The Pin Devices button enables you to manually add devices to the device group and images/download/attachments/10651697/gear.png enables you to pin or unpin devices that are members of the group.

Click Pin Devices to display the Pin Devices pop-up. All devices to which you have permission, that are not pinned to the device group, appear in the list.
1. Select the check box for each device to pin to the device group.
2. Click Pin to Group on the pop-up to pin the devices you select to the device group.
In the Membership list, select the check box for each device to pin to the device group, click and select Pin Selected Devices to pin the devices you select to the device group.
Select the check box for each device to unpin from the device group, click , and select Unpin Selected Devices to unpin the devices you select from the device group. If you pin a device that was added by a rule, when you unpin the device it is removed from the membership list. If you click Apply Rule, the device appears in the list again.
- Click to edit the values for the metadata attributes you want to associate with the device. See the Manage Metadata Values section above.

Table of Contents (Start)

Device Groups

Manage Device Group Hierarchy

Manage Metadata Values

Device Group Membership Rules

Device Group Membership

Membership Management