Re: [PLUG] How to Detect Unmanaged Switches?

[Matt Mossholder <matt@mossholder.com>]

On Jan 2, 2015 8:25 AM, "Casey Bralla" <MailList@nerdworld.org> wrote:
>
> I've been playing around with some python code I wrote to monitor my
> home/small business network.   I basically want to detect whenever any of my
> very low cost hardware (ie cheap sh*t) goes south and needs to be rebooted.
>
>
> I can ping known devices and retrieve things like internal web pages to verify
> the device is working, but I've got several dumb switches that have started to
> age and occasionally go off-line.   I can detect the absence of devices on the
> other side of the switch, but I'd like to see if the switch itself is dead.
>
> The switch won't ever respond to pings (since it has no IP address).
>
>
> is there a utility like nmap that will seek out arp addresses or some other
> information that will let me know if a dumb switch is on line?
> --
>
> Casey Bralla
>
> Chief Nerd in Residence
> The NerdWorld Organisation
> www.NerdWorld.org

Have you tried monitoring for spanning tree protocol frames? That should catch most switches.

___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug