InterMapper Quick Tour
Ten things to try with InterMapper when you're first checking it out. Learn how to create maps, make them attractive, send alerts, make charts, etc.
This page lists ten thing you can try with InterMapper to get more familiar with it. You can also refer to the InterMapper User Guide for more information.
- Try Out The Demo Maps When you install InterMapper for the first time, a set of demo maps is installed. On the Welcome page, click Try Out The Demo Maps and take a couple minutes to try the steps listed in the text you'll see there. When finished, you can click Disable This Map. You can disable the demo map from the Enabled Maps pane of the Server Settings window.
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Building Maps There are several ways to create maps—autodiscovery, entering addresses manually, and importing a file. Before you proceed, you may want to download the Hands-on Examples because it has some files for the following steps. Things to try:
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Autodiscovery InterMapper can scan a network to find devices
- Create a new map by choosing File > New map... Give it a name (Local Network) and click Next.
- Check the Autodiscovery button in the window, then click Next. You'll see the Autodiscover window.
- Enter a starting point address (the default value is fine) and click OK.
- Autodiscovery will begin. Let it complete, or click Cancel in the top of the map when you've discovered enough.
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Manual Entry You can also add devices manually by typing or pasting a list of DNS names or IP addresses into the window that appears.
- Create a new map, give it the name "North America" and click Next >. Check the Manual Entry button, then click Next >. You'll see the Add Device(s)... window.
- Type www.helpsystems.com and www.example.com and click Add. Note that they appear as devices (rectangles) and turn green a few moments afterward. (InterMapper is already testing them.)
- You can add a background image to make the map look better. Drag the NorthAmerica.jpg from the Hands-on Extras folder to map window and it will appear as the map's background.
- Choose Window > Zoom window to resize the map to the image.
- Drag the rectangles to the desired location on the background map.
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Import a file InterMapper can read a tab-delimited file to populate a map.
- Choose File > Import >Data File... A file-selection window will open.
- Select the Unalakleet Import.tab from the Hands-on Extras folder.
- InterMapper will create a new map named Unalakleet (the map name is already specified in the import file), and place the imported devices onto the map.
- Note that the devices are added to the map, and their icons are aligned in a vertical column.
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Geographic positioning When importing, InterMapper also can place devices on a map according to their latitude and longitude.
- Add the Unalakleet.gif file as a background to the Unalakleet map by dragging it into the window.
- Zoom the window to make it full-size (Window > Zoom Window or Ctl/Cmd-/). Remove the devices (Select all; Clear).
- Set benchmarks on the map by control/right-clicking on a city on the map and choosing Set Benchmark...
- Enter the latitude/longitude printed at the bottom of the map background for the data. Do this for both points listed on the bottom of the map.
- Re-import the Unalakleet Import.tab file using File > Import > Map data.... The icons now appear in the proper location.
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Create top-level map InterMapper can have top-level maps that indicate the most serious condition of a sub-map. We'll add icons for the Local Network and the Unalakleet sub-maps to the North America map.
- Open the North America map and position it and the Map List so you can see both windows.
- Drag the icon for Unalakleet from the Map List into North America map.
- Drag the icon for the Local Network map in a similar way.
- Drill down by double-clicking the Local Network icon on the top-level North America map. You'll see the Local Network map open up.
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Making Attractive Maps There are a number of techniques for making the maps look more attractive, or to convey more information. Things to try:
- Drag items around to match the way you think of your network. Lines between devices "rubberband" to preserve the interconnections.
- Add a background image to position devices as you like. Simply drag a PNG, JPEG, or GIF image into the map window to add it, or choose Edit > Map Settings...
- Select different icons and shapes for devices Choose Format > Icon... to pick new icons for the devices.
- Change labels on devices The label is the text that appears in/next to the icon on the map. To edit a device's label, choose Format > Label... or Ctl/Cmd-L.
- Arrange devices on the map Use different options in the Format > Arrange... menu .
- Align command The Format > Align (Ctl/Cmd-Shift-K) command aligns items vertically and/or horizontally.
- Add a link between devices Select two devices, then Insert > Add link (Ctl/Cmd-E)
- Connect multiple devices to a point Select the devices, then choose the context menu Attach to... Lines will rubberband, and stick to the object you next click.
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Probes for Various Servers In addition to simply pinging them, InterMapper can monitor dozens of different devices and display their special characteristics. Right/control-click, or Monitor > Set Probe... to select the probe for one or multiple selected devices. Things to try:
- Automatic This probe uses either Pings or SNMP queries to monitor the device. If the device speaks SNMP, InterMapper will use the SNMP MIB-II probe to query the device. If not, InterMapper will ping the device and report if it ever goes down.
- SNMP Traffic The SNMP Traffic probe monitors traffic on routers, switches, etc. It works with nearly all network gear from different vendors.
- Network Devices There are many probes for monitoring various other equipment, such as Cisco, Apple, APC and other UPS vendors, and other equipment.
- Servers-Standard Standards-based servers, such as mail, web, LDAP, Radius, DNS, etc.
- Servers-Proprietary Vendor-specific probes for Apple, Barracuda, Big Brother, FileMaker, Lotus, and many others.
- Miscellaneous Nagios, legacy probes, etc. along with other bundles of probes for wireless and other gear.
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Alerts and Notifications InterMapper can put a device into one of five states: OK, Critical, Warning, Alarm, Down. Each time the device goes into a new state, InterMapper can trigger a notification/alert.
- Create Notifiers Notifiers are like a robot that watches a device and performs some action to send an alert when it changes state. Choose Edit > Server Settings and scroll to the Notifier List at the bottom. Add an e-mail notifier for yourself.
- Examine various notification types Mail, pager (analog modem and SNPP), command line, trap, group, syslog.
- Look at schedule Alerts will only be triggered during the selected schedule, otherwise they are ignored.
- Finally, Attach a notifier to a device To attach a notifier, choose Monitor > Notifiers window and check the boxes for the states that should trigger a notification.
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Acknowledgement After alerts/notifications have been sent, you probably want to set those problems aside so you can detect new ones. Acknowledging a device turns its icon blue (to indicate that it has been acknowledged). The device is still down, but its blue color shows that someone has taken responsibility for it. Acknowledging also helps you know who's working on the problem. Each time you ack a device, there's an opportunity to enter an ack message, that is written to the Event log. This contains the login name of the person who ack'd it.
- Monitor > Acknowledge... (Ctl/Cmd-') This does three things:
- It stops subsequent repeated notifications.
- The text of the message is written to the Event Log file, along with the name and IP address of the person who did it.
- The icon stops blinking, and turns blue, to indicate that it's acknowledged, and someone's working on it.
- Basic acknowledgement Only for duration of that state
- Timed For the next n minutes, hours, or days
- Indefinite Until cancelled
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Dependencies InterMapper will suppress notifications if it can tell that a device is unreachable because of another failure. InterMapper supports automatic dependencies—it follows the links from the vantage point through the map to the failed device. If there's an outage on that path, InterMapper won't send notifications for the dependent device.
- Automatic InterMapper follows the links from the Vantage Point.
- Set the Vantage Point - only one per map
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Charts View the history of selected variables.
- Open a status window for a device.
- Tear off window by dragging outside.
- Click an underlined value to create new chart.
- Drag another underlined link to add it to an existing chart.
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Edit > Server Settings The server settings shows the preferences for a server.
- Per server Use the Edit > Server Settings...
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InterMapper RemoteAccess Allows you to have all this fun, but from anywhere on the Internet
- Connects to multiple servers at remote locations
- Works through firewall at client/remote site. You pick the port.
- SSL Encryption is the default. You can install your own SSL certificate.