External IPs

DC Netscope names the addresses it sees in the flows from the inventory of your virtualization platform: an address of a virtual machine or of a host shows up with its name. The other ones, those of your physical servers, network equipment, other sites or online services, show up as bare IP addresses.

The External IPs view lets you name them. Give a name to an address, or to a whole network, and DC Netscope ties the flows of these addresses to it.

Open it with the External IPs entry of the left menu.

External IPs view

The view has three parts:

  • the toolbar: + Import from CSV and Export on the left, Save and Cancel on the right,
  • the form to add an external IP,
  • the list of the external IPs, with a Delete button on each of them.

Note

Adding, importing or deleting external IPs only changes the list in your browser. Click Save to send it to DC Netscope, or Cancel to discard your changes and reload the list as it was last saved.

Adding an external IP

Type the address and the name in the form, then click Add external IP.

Add an external IP

  • Address: a single IPv4 address (192.168.3.254), a single IPv6 address (2001:db8::1), or a network in CIDR notation (10.20.0.0/16). A network stands for every address it holds.
  • Name: letters, digits and underscores only, such as datacenter_b or backup_server.

An address or a name that does not follow these rules is not added, and a red icon shows up next to its field. Hover the icon to see the rules.

Invalid name

The external IP is added at the end of the list. Click Save to apply it.

The new external IP in the list

To remove an external IP, click its Delete button, then Save.

How DC Netscope uses them

When DC Netscope receives a flow whose address belongs to no resource of the inventory, it looks for the address in the external IPs:

  1. an external IP with this exact address,
  2. otherwise, an external IP whose network holds the address.

The flow is then tied to this external IP, of type external_ip, instead of an unknown address:

  • the Dashboard counts these flows as inside your infrastructure,
  • external IPs can be members of apps groups, and through them be used in the network rules of the flows descriptions. An external IP standing for a network brings all its addresses.

Note

The inventory comes first: an address of a virtual machine or of a host keeps its name, even when it belongs to the network of an external IP.

Warning

Saved external IPs apply to the flows received from then on, and to those of the last hour. The flows received before keep showing their bare addresses.

Importing from a CSV file

To add many external IPs at once, click + Import from CSV and choose a CSV file. The wizard lists the external IPs it read from the file: check them, then click Finish.

Import from a CSV file

The file holds one external IP per line, its address then its name, separated by a comma or a semicolon. The first line is a header, and is skipped:

IpAddress,ResourceName
10.20.0.0/16,datacenter_b
10.20.1.10,backup_server
192.168.3.254,office_router

The import merges the file into the list:

  • an address that is already in the list takes the name given by the file,
  • the other addresses are added.

The import does not check the names: make sure they only use letters, digits and underscores. As for an addition, click Save to apply the import.

Exporting to a CSV file

Click Export, choose the separator (comma or semi-colon), then click External ips. Your browser downloads the list as netscope-external-ips.csv.

Export the external IPs

The exported file has the format the import reads: export the external IPs of a DC Netscope, edit them in a spreadsheet, and import them back, or into another DC Netscope.