Documentation forIP Address Manager
Managing IP addresses is a key capability of SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted (formerly Hybrid Cloud Observability) and is available in the Essentials edition. IP Address Manager (IPAM) is also available in a standalone module.

Neighbor scanning in IPAM

Neighbor scanning attempts to retrieve the status of a device that is not responding to ICMP. It scans the ARP table of a neighbor router to determine what IP addresses are active.

Neighbor scanning is disabled by default, as it can increase router CPU usage, and therefore should only be enabled when needed.

  1. Go to My Dashboards > IP Address Management > Manage Subnets & IP Addresses.
  2. Select a subnet containing the device or devices that are not responding.
  3. Click Edit.
  4. Scroll to the bottom of the Edit Subnet Properties Window.
  5. Uncheck the Disable Neighbor Scanning checkbox.

    Additional options are displayed.

  6. Enter the Neighbor IP Address and select a Scan Interval.
  7. Click Test to verify connection.
  8. Click Save.

How Neighbor scanning works

IPAM first checks if the device is capable of SNMP and supports an ARP table.

  • To check whether SNMP is available, IPAM uses these OIDs:
    OidSysContact  "1.3.6.1.2.1.1.4.0" iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2.system.sysContact.0
  • To check whether the ARP table is available, it uses:
    OidIPNetToMediaTable "1.3.6.1.2.1.4.22" iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2.ip.ipNetToMediaTable

The IPNetToMediaTable is pulled for client information. If the device supports this table, then IPAM can use this information.