IP Address Management tool

Use the IP Address Management tool in ETS for the Desktop to actively monitor which IP addresses are in use on your network across multiple subnets. You can also use it to pre-allocate IP addresses.

Open the IP Address Management tool

• To launch the tool from the Toolset Launch Pad, locate the IP Address Management tool and click Launch.

• You can add the tool to a tab in the Workspace Studio, and access it from there.

• To launch the tool from the Windows Start menu:

  1. Click Start > All > SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset.

  2. Right-click IP Address Management, click More, and click Run as administrator.

Scan a network subnet

1. Click Subnets > New.

2. Enter a name for the subnet.

   This name is used in the navigation tree on the left of the user interface, and as the window name in the right pane.

3. Enter an IP address in the subnet you want to scan.

4. Enter the subnet mask, and then click OK.

The following information is reported for each IP address:

• IP address status, for example, Available, Used, or Reserved
• DNS name
• Days from the last response
• Machine enter (For target devices that support SNMP)
• System Name (For target devices that support SNMP)
• Location (For target devices that support SNMP)
• Response Time
• Add comments for each address

Modify subnets

You can change the name used to identify a subnet within the IP Address Management tool, modify the subnet mask, and change the automatic scan frequency.

1. In the left pane, click the subnet you want to modify.

2. Click Subnets > Details.

3. Enter an easily recognizable name in the Subnet Name field.

4. Enter the mask you want to use when scanning the subnet.

   If you change this setting, you must rescan the subnet.

5. Adjust the slider to adjust the frequency with which the IP Address Management tool should scan the subnet for IP addresses in use.

You can also specify that this subnet be excluded from the automatic publishing of discovered IP addresses. See Automatically publish discovered information in HTML

Filter subnet addresses

The addresses within each subnet can be filtered to display the following discovered addresses:

All addresses in the subnet	Provides a list of all addresses listed in IP address order.
Used addresses in the subnet	Provides a list of only the IP addresses that have responded to an IP Address Management scan. These IP addresses are currently in use and should not be used when assigning addresses to new devices.
Available addresses in the subnet	Displays IP addresses that have never responded and are marked available. These addresses can be assigned to new devices.
Reserved addresses in the subnet	Displays the IP addresses that you have marked as reserved for future use. You should reserve an IP address when assigning it to a device. You can reserve an IP address by clicking the IP address and pressing R on the keyboard or by clicking on the IP address and selecting Address Status > Reserved.

Filter the discovered subnet list

Click View, and then select the filter you want to use:

• All Addresses
• Used Addresses
• Reserved Addresses
• Available Addresses

Change the status of an IP address manually

If you know the status of an IP address and it is not properly shown in your IP address scan, you can manually update the status of the address. You may need to manually update address information for a variety of reasons, including:

• A particular device was down at the time of the scan.
• A device has been recently decommissioned.

Click Edit, and then click an option:

• Mark Selected Addresses as Reserved.
• Mark Selected Addresses as Used.
• Mark Selected Addresses as Available.

Modify SNMP credentials and enable SNMP discovery

SNMP credentials are not required to use the product to find used or available IP addresses. To discover the type of device using the IP address, specify SNMP credentials. You can create a list of SNMP credentials, including SNMP v3 credentials, to use when you query your subnets.

1. Click File > Network/Scanner Settings.

2. Check Enable SNMP Discovery on the Credentials tab.

3. Click Add.

4. Specify the information on the Add Credentials window, and then click OK.

5. Arrange the order of the community strings using Move Up and Move Down.

   Access is attempted using the community strings in the displayed order. Frequently used credentials should be higher in the list to speed discovery.

6. Click OK.

Modify ICMP scan settings

Initial contact with devices is attempted using ICMP. Depending on your network, you can modify your scanning settings to expand or shorten delays between pings and the timeout.

1. Click File > Network/Scanner Settings.

2. Click the Preferences tab, and then specify the values in the Scanning grouping of the window.

• The number of pings should be set to 2 or higher, especially when scanning networks using Cisco routers. If the target IP address is not in the ARP cache of a Cisco router, the router discards the ICMP query (ping) while it requests the MAC address of the target IP. The first ping will never arrive at the subnet of the target IP address. In this situation, the Cisco router responds to the second ping.

• On slow connections, consider allowing more time between pings and expanding the timeout period.

3. Click OK.

Automatically publish discovered information in HTML

You can use the IP Address Management tool to automatically generate an HTML file that contains the information you select on a timed schedule. For example, you can save this report to your inetpub root directory and provide an automatically-refreshed list of used and available IP addresses on your website.

1. Click File > Network/Scanner Settings.

2. Click the Preferences tab, and then select Enable auto-publish to web.

3. Specify the directory to save the HTML files in.

   The files use the subnet address as the name of the published HTML file.

   The default directory is <ALL_USERS_PROFILE>\Application Data\SolarWinds\Toolset.

4. Specify the publishing interval in the Auto-publish every field.

5. Select one of these options:

   • Publish all IP Addresses
   • Publish only Reserved, Used, or IP Addresses with comments

6. Click OK.

Exclude a subnet from automatic publishing

You can exclude a specific subnet from the published HTML file.

1. Click Subnets > Details.

2. In the Subnet Details window, select Exclude this subnet when Auto-Publishing to the Web, and then click OK.

Scan a subnet manually

In the left pane, select the subnet, and then click Subnets > Scan Now.

Refresh a subnet IP address list

Select the subnet in the left pane, and then click Refresh. Refreshing a subnet does not rescan the subnet. This action only repopulates the table from the database.

Share an IP Address Management database

When you create an IP Address Management database, you can select a shared location to save the database to. If you select a shared server, any computer in your network with the IP Address Management tool installed can access, view, and update this data.

If you have an existing database that you want to move to a shared server, complete the following task.

1. Copy the IP-Address-Management.IPDB file from the SolarWinds directory where you installed Engineer's Toolset for the Desktop.

   The default installation directory is \Program Files\SolarWinds\Engineer's Toolset.

2. Add the IP-Address-Management.IPDB file to the shared server where you want the database to reside.

3. Open the SolarWinds IP Address Management tool that you want to use this database.

4. Click File > Open IP Address Management Database, and then browse to and select the IP-Address-Management.IPDB on your shared server.

   This database becomes your default until you change to a different database.

Export, print, and copy subnet scans

After you perform a subnet scan, the IP Address Management tool enables you to transfer that information to other tools.

To export calculations:

1. Click File > Export, and then select the type of export.
2. Select the information to export.
3. Specify the name and path for the exported information.

To copy calculations, click Edit > Copy.

To print calculations, click File > Print, and then select the information to print.