I want to be able to show (by device) open/blocked status for a given protocol between two devices/ports on a network. In other words, I need to output a list of network devices (firewalls & switches) between Server A and Server B and indicate whether the request should (according to each device's rules) be allowed through or blocked.
I'm starting with the Cisco networking devices, which are centrally managed by Cisco's Security Manager (CSM) application (version 4.2). I'm new to network management automation programming and want to make sure I'm not overlooking an obvious best way to handle this.
So far it's looking like I'll need to periodically export and ETL device rules out of CSM (they have a perl script that I can call to do this I believe) and into a separate database, then write some custom SQL code to determine which devices on a route between two hosts/ports will allow or block traffic of the given protocol?
Am I on the right track, or is there a better way to go about this?
If I understood your question, I think you can run a TCL script inside the Cisco equipments do collect the necessary information and transfer it to a central server, form there import it to a database and then correlate that information.
Hope that helps you in your work.
Related
I am working with two tcl files. One is a program that connects to a thermal scanner to get information from it via ethernet. I have integrated the other tcl GUI that can reflash the scanner via ethernet. How do I use the connection from the first one to use the flash utility on the second GUI? At first, the two GUI's were separate but I had to combine them for customers.
-let me know if you need any code, the programs are about 4000 lines long so I didnt want to put them on here.
A single TCP connection can only really be used by one process (at each end) at a time; trying to do otherwise causes confusion. Can you just get each program to talk to the thermal scanner directly? At least theoretically, it ought be able to support multiple simultaneous connections, and that'd be a simple way to work.
But if the device won't work that way, the easiest way to multiplex the communications is to have a single process that actually talks to the device and for the other programs to talk to that multiplexer process (probably via a local socket). The multiplexer doesn't need to have a GUI, but would be told to do things like “flash this file to the scanner” or “stream values out of the scanner”. The details of how to do all this will depend very much on what's actually going on with the communications, but the fcopy command is highly likely to be useful in this, as it can be used to efficiently stream data from one Tcl channel to another.
Is it possible to access my Cisco router details like Name,Model,IP Address,Connection status etc from my iOS mobile.
I'm even ready to write small mobile app in iOS to get all router details.
Since I have just started learning in iOS, don't know if any library already exists for above task.
If my router does not work or gets hang.. I even want to try for restart of router using my mobile.
If example code exist, it will be very useful.
Like Cisco already has andriod and iOS app for same above function but dont want to use this app and want to write my own app with limited features only.
(http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/cisco-connect-express-manage-router-settings-remotely-android-ios/)
Thanks,
Accessing network gear is best done by using SNMP. Cisco has extremely rich management/monitoring capabilities via SNMP and all of their MIBs are publicly available here.
Almost all Cisco gear supports the SNMPv2-SMI MIB (the 1.3.6.1.2.1 OID) so querying things like sysName, sysLocation, sysContact, sysDescription, sysUpTime should be very easy. This MIB even supports tables for listing all the interfaces and IP addresses and has a whole lot of other things that might be of interest to you.
If you have SNMP write access on the device then you can even make config changes and perform management functions like rebooting or bringing an interface up/down.
There are a few SNMP libraries for ObjectiveC and I think Net-SNMP is the most popular (It's not .net even though the title suggests that).
If you are new to SNMP then I suggest starting simple by querying easy objects like 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.5 (sysName) and 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.6 (sysLocation) before trying to jump into tables like 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2 (ifTable)
Remember, you don't have to stick with the standard MIBs you can download all of the custom ones that are particular to your device which will give you incredible amounts of flexibility.
You could use a screen-scraping technique to telnet or ssh to the Cisco device and parse the "show version" output. This will give you some of the information you need. For others, like IP addresses, you can use "show ip interface brief", "show cdp neighbors" etc. as you need.
Keep security in mind: make sure that telnet/ssh credentials are adequately protected in your app's settings, and try to restrict your commands to those that do not need privileged access on the Cisco device.
Be aware that Cisco devices have a small pool of available VTYs, and every telnet/ssh access from your app will use up one VTY. So if you have for example 30 guys wanting to use the access the device simultaneously from their apps, some of those instances are not going to get access to the device.
If this is a concern, SNMP is a better and more scalable option as suggested by previous answer. Make sure that you (a) have a read-only community string configured on the device, and (b) use only the ro community string from the app.
Obviously there are multiple steps and phases of implementing such a thing.
I was thinking I would eventually have a webserver that takes http json requests from the ios app, and then queries the cassandra backend and sends results back. I could load balance and all that fancy stuff still, and also provide a logical layer on server side, and keep the client app lightweight.
I'm not sure i understand how cassandra clients fit though. It seems like the cassandra objective c client could eliminate the need for the above approach.
I saw another question and answer but it wasnt clear, perhaps because it varys on the need.
An iPhone app should not directly connect to a Cassandra backend or any other DB store.
First of all, talking to a database often requires adapting a very specific binary protocol (for Cassandra in particular, binary CQL or Thrift). Writing an adapter that would let your Objective-C app communicate in this binary protocol is a major piece of work, and could easily cost more than the rest of your app in effort. If you hide the DB behind a web-server, however, you will be able to select from a variety of existing adapters available in different server-side languages, meaning that you don't need to redo all that low-level work. You'll only be responsible for a relatively small piece of server-side code that would translate your REST queries and forward them to one of the Cassandra adapters (which expose easy-to-use interfaces).
Secondly, if you wanted to connect to a remote database from the phone, your database server would have to open its ports to the internet at large, which is a very bad security practice, even if you use SSL and user credentials. Again, if you hide behind a web server, you will be putting in a layer of technology that has evolved for decades to remain secure on the public internet.
Finally, having your phone talk to Cassandra directly is a poor architectural pattern. When you write apps that communicate on the internet, you want them to know as little as possible about each other, only how to talk to each other (preferably in a standard protocol). That way you can replace or upgrade individual components while keeping everything else the same. This may not sound like a lot, but is actually the main reason why phones, or web browsers, don't directly talk to databases. (If this setup were a good idea in principle, the first two problems could be easily solved given enough engineering effort.)
The approach you first suggested with JSON and the web server is the only correct way to go.
Use something like RESTful API, there are many reasons for that.
if your servers ip addresses change you have to update all client, if you add more nodes you will need to update all clients, if you decide to upgrade your cassandra and some functions change your clients will break and you need to update all clients.
I want to make a small app that collects data from a device attached to a serial port and passes it across a LAN to another app which stores it in a database.
I have done this already in one app on a single PC, so will effectively be splitting the app in half.
I have zer0 experience of network programming.
I want something "secure" meaning that the data are in some way encrypted and relatively straightforward to implement.
At the moment communication is one way, but I might want so send control data in the return direction later.
Can someone please recommend a protocol (preferably one which is commonly used for this sort of thing) and post a small code snippet of how to send and receive - let's say a data structure with a string for user name and an integer for age.
Or, just point me at a URL.
Thanks in advance.
Answer: I'm going with IpSec and Exchanging Data over the Network using Delphi
You can simply use IPSec between the two computer and the operating system will encrypt the channel without any need of changing the applications.
Other option may be DCOM (if you use the Enterprise version of Delphi Datasnap supports it) that can also encrypt the communication (must be set in the configuration, works best in a domain).
Both options don't need certificates or the like, and the OS will take care of storing the keys safely.
Hie members! ----am Boniface M - - a beginner in android[University student]..
My question is am planning to develop an android app/middleware that will act as a grid service .i.e an app for grid computing.. the application needs to be installed in 1....n devices. in the connection, one device must act as a server for all others. communication between the devices is via the wifi under the permission of the server device.which is determined by a certain algorithm[no problem here].
The problem is should i use a database that will keep track of all the services a device is running which are accessible to other devices or is there any way that i can directly keep all this information and then retrieve them as i request them from another app installed in another device.
and also how i can share files via wifi like blutooth
Thanks....
You're asking many questions in one and I'm actually unsure what you mean overall. Here's a few links that are sure be of some use...
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Build.html This library is good for finding out information about the device you're running on.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Criteria.html - Criteria might be useful, lets you know what location based services you have running
Other than that, if you're looking to see if particular things are running check out this question: How to check if a service is running on Android?
If you're looking to keep a central hub of what devices have what available etc. you're going to need a middle man for what you want to do I suspect. If it was me, I'd do HTTP requests to a server, to php scripts I have written which would then read/write from a MySQL database to get information about other devices.
If you want to share files via wifi.. you're going to need an FTP server on the phone. There's an app swiFTP which does this to some degree (phone -> PC) but the concept should be the same. Take a look at it. It's a starting point! http://www.tested.com/news/how-to-transfer-files-wirelessly-to-your-android-phone/53/
Again, I'm unsure EXACTLY what you're looking to do but hopefully all of that is of some help. If it's not leave me a comment and I'll try and assist you further.
hope it helps!