Network Devices

The Network Devices page in the Kentik portal enables you to see information about existing devices registered with Kentik, as well as to add and edit devices. This article covers the structure of the page in the following topics:

• About Devices
• Supported Device Types
• Devices Page
• Device List
• Device Details
• Label Controls
• Device List Filters
• Device Settings Dialog
• Manage Devices

Notes:
- Device settings made in the Device Settings Dialog are covered in Device Settings.
- Devices may be set up during your organization's initial onboarding with Kentik; see Onboarding.
- If you would like assistance with any aspect of adding or managing a device, please contact us at Customer Support.

Devices are one of two main types of Data Sources in Kentik. Devices are classified as either routers (which includes hardware such as switches and firewalls) or hosts, which utilize Kentik's kprobe software host agent. Devices can send flow data to Kentik (e.g. NetFlow, sFlow, IPFIX), be polled by Kentik for SNMP data, and have BGP data from their routing tables read by Kentik. These various types of data from devices are correlated by Kentik, along with other data such as GeoIP, DNS, etc., into the time-series database at the heart of our backend, the Kentik Data Engine (KDE).

Enabling a device to send data to Kentik involves two main stages:

• Register a new device in the Kentik portal. Information about that process is included in this article (see Manage Devices).
• Configure the device itself to send flow:
  - If the device is a router or other networking hardware, see Router Configuration.
  - If the device is a host (via kprobe), see Host Configuration.

Kentik currently supports devices in two broad categories:

• Routers, which include switches and firewalls.
• Hosts, which include cloud resources.

Devices in the two categories store and report traffic differently (see Device Type) and also use some different Device Settings. The table below shows the types of devices currently available in the portal, including the category of each. The types are listed in the order in which they appear in the Type drop-down on the General tab of the Device settings dialog (see Device General Settings).

Notes:
- Every router type listed below is at core a "NetFlow-enabled router." The advantage of choosing a more specific device type (e.g. "Cisco IOS XR") is that it enables us to collect data for Device-specific Dimensions.
- Selecting "MPLS router" will enable data collection for MPLS Dimensions but not for the device's device-specific dimensions.

Note: In the Device API the above device types are referenced using the subtype values listed above.

The Devices page of the Kentik portal may be reached by choosing Settings from the main menu, then clicking Networking Devices (under Data Sources). All registered devices for your organization are listed on the page, which includes the following main UI elements:

• Share (on SubNav): Opens the Share dialog to enable you to share the current view (see Sharing via the Share Dialog).
• Actions (on SubNav): A drop-down menu from which you can choose to export or subscribe to the current view:
  - Export: Exports the page’s content as a visual report (PDF) or data table (CSV). A notification appears when the export is ready to download.
  - Subscribe: Opens the Subscribe dialog enabling you to subscribe to regular reports from the page, either by choosing an existing subscription (combination of email address and schedule) or specifying a new one. The form in the Subscribe dialog is the same as on the Subscription tab of the Share dialog, which is covered in Subscription Tab UI.
  - Unsubscribe: Opens the Unsubscribe dialog. Click the Subscription drop-down, select the subscription from which you’d like to unsubscribe, and click Unsubscribe.
  Note: Unsubscribe will only appear if you have an existing subscription for this page.
• Selection indicator: Indicates how many devices are currently selected in the Device list (see the Select column in Device List Columns). Label controls apply to the selected devices.
• Label controls: A set of buttons that allow you to manage labels for devices in the list (see Label Controls).
• Add Device: A button that opens a Device Settings Dialog, which allows you to add a new device.
• Show/Hide Filters (filter icon): A button that toggles the Filters pane between expanded and collapsed.
• Group By: A drop-down from which you can choose how to group the devices on the list (see Device List Grouping).
• Search: A field that shows lozenges for the filters currently set in the Filters pane and also enables you to enter text. The Device list will be filtered to show only rows that meet the filter criteria and contain the entered text. Click the X at the right of the field to clear entered text, and the X in a lozenge to clear the corresponding filter.
• Filters pane: A set of controls that enable you to filter the Device list (see Device List Filters).
• Device list: A table listing your organization’s devices (see Device List).

The Group By drop-down enables you to group the rows of the Device list based on one of the following options:

• None: Devices are not grouped.
• Site: The devices are grouped by the sites to which each is assigned (see About Sites).
• Plan: The devices are grouped by their Kentik billing plan (see About Plans).
• Flow Type: The devices are grouped by the Flow Protocols used to send flow data to Kentik.
• Vendor: The devices are grouped by their manufacturer.

The Device list is covered in the following topics:

• About the Device List
• Device List Columns
• Device List Actions

The Device list is a table that shows information about your organization’s devices as well as available actions. By default, the list is ordered alphabetically by name (ascending). To change the sort order of the list, click on a heading to choose a sort column, and on the resulting blue up or down arrow to choose the sort direction (ascending or descending).

Each row of the Device list shows the device's values for each of the Device List Columns, as well as Device List Actions. You can also show an extensive set of additional details about the device by clicking on the device's row, which slides out the Device Details drawer from the right of the page. If the drawer is already open and you click on the row for a different device, the details will be replaced with details for the new device. To close the drawer, click anywhere outside of the Device list.

The columns displayed in the Device list depend on the settings selected in the Customize Columns popup (see Customize Device List). The following columns are available:

• Select All (checkbox in header row): A checkbox for toggling the selection state of all devices in the Device list:
  - If no checkboxes in the list are checked, or only some are checked, then clicking this checkbox will select all checkboxes.
  - If all checkboxes in the list are checked, clicking this checkbox will deselect all checkboxes.
• Select: A checkbox at the left of each device row that selects the device for applying or clearing labels (see Label Controls).
• Name: Includes the following for each device:
  - Type: An icon indicating the category of the device (router, host, etc.; see Supported Device Types).
  - Name: Name of the device as specified in the Device dialog.
  - Labels: Any labels applied to the device, which display below the device name.
• ID: The device's Kentik-assigned device ID.
• Status: A set of icons indicating what types of data Kentik is receiving from the device (see Device Status Icons).
• FPS Raw: The rate at which the device has been generating flow records over the last six hours (before any Kentik downsampling).
• FPS Sampled: The rate at which Kentik has been ingesting flow records from the device over the last six hours. This value is after any downsampling Kentik performs pursuant to the terms of the plan to which the device is assigned.
• BGP Prefixes: For devices whose Status column shows BGP as established, this column shows the IP v4 (top) and v6 (bottom) prefixes currently (within last 5 minutes) in the BGP routing table.
• Site: Shows the name of the site to which the device is assigned and provides a link to that site’s Details page (see About Sites).
• Plan: The billing plan to which the device is assigned(see About Plans).
• Flow Type: The format of the flow data (e.g. NetFlow v5, v9, IPFIX, or SFlow). See Flow Protocols.
• IP Address: The IP address(es) from which the device sends data to Kentik.
• Vendor: The device’s manufacturer.

To choose which of the columns above are displayed to you in your Device list:

1. Click the Customize button at the upper right of the Device list.
2. In the resulting Customize Columns popup, use the checkboxes to select or deselect columns.
3. Use the handle at the left of any column to drag it into the desired order.
4. Click anywhere outside the popup to close it. The list will be updated to reflect your column selections.

The Status column of the Device list shows several Device Status Icons which indicate the flow status for the following types of data:

• Flow: Indicates whether Kentik is receiving flow records from the device.
• SNMP: Indicates whether Kentik is able to successfully poll the device for SNMP data.
• BGP v4: Indicates whether Kentik is peering with the device to receive BGP v4 routing data.
• BGP v6: Indicates whether Kentik is peering with the device to receive BGP v6 routing data.
• ST: Indicates whether Kentik is able to successfully receive streaming telemetry (ST) from the device.

The icons in the table below are used to indicate the detected status of various types of data collection for each device.

The following actions are available from the icons at the right of each device's row in the Device list:

• Edit (pencil icon; not present when the device is archived): Opens a Device Settings Dialog in which you can edit the device’s settings (see Edit a Device).
• Archive (red file box with down arrow; not present when a device is archived): Opens a confirming dialog with which you can archive (deactivate) the device.
  Note: Flow and other data from an archived device will no longer be ingested into Kentik or included in aggregates or evaluations on any portal page or process, including Network Explorer, Insights, Hybrid Map, etc.
• Restore (file box with up arrow; only present when a device is archived): A button that opens a confirming dialog enabling you to restore an archived device to active status.
  Note: Archived devices cannot be restored when all of your organization's device licenses are already in use by active devices.
• Remove (trash icon; only present when a device is archived): Opens a confirming dialog with which you can permanently remove the device from your organization's collection of Kentik-registered devices.
  Note: Removing a device will remove all of the device's flow records from the Kentik Data Engine.

The Details pane appears in a drawer that slides out from the right of the page when you click a device's row in the Device list. The pane contains the device-related information described in the topics below:

• Device General Details
• Device Flow Details
• Device Interface Details
• Device SNMP Details
• Device BGP Details
• Device ST Details
• Device Features

The top part of the Details pane contains general information about the device:

• ID: The device's Kentik-assigned device ID.
• Name: Includes the following:
  - Type: An icon indicating the category of the device (router, host, etc.; see Supported Device Types).
  - Name: The name of the device as specified when the device was registered or edited.
• Labels: The labels, if any, assigned to the device.
• View in Network Explorer: A button that takes you to the Details page for this device (see Core Details Pages).
  Note: The button is present only when Kentik is detecting flow from the device (FPS is greater than 0).
• View Device Details: A button that takes you to the Details page for this device in Kentik's NMS Devices module (see NMS Device Details Page).
  Note: This button is present — instead of the View in Network Explorer button — when both of the following are true:
  - The device is enabled for NMS on the SNMP or Streaming Telemetry tab of the Device Settings Dialog.
  - Kentik is receiving no flow from the device (e.g. the device is not configured to send flow, the device has no traffic, the Sending IP is not set in the device's settings dialog, etc.).
• Manufacturer: Information about the device, obtained by SNMP polling, including the full name and version identification of the system’s hardware type, software operating-system, and networking software (see sysDescr in System Information OIDs), if available.
• Description: The description string specified in the Device dialog (if provided).
• Site: The site to which this device is assigned.
• Plan: The billing plan to which the device is assigned (see About Plans).
• Kproxy Agents: The kproxy agents, if any, via which flow data is sent from the devices at this site to Kentik (see Kentik Proxy Agent).
• Sending IPs: IP address(es) from which the device sends flow.
• Created: The date the device was registered to the Kentik portal.

The Flow section of the Details pane contains information related to the flow records sent from the device to Kentik (see Flow Overview):

• Flow status: Indicates whether Kentik is receiving flow from the device. The indicator has the following states:
  - No Flow Detected (orange): Displayed when no flow is detected from the device.
  - Direct Flow Detected (green): Displayed when flow is coming directly from a router.
  - Kentik Agent Detected (green): Displayed when flow is coming via Kentik's kproxy software agent (see Kentik Proxy Agent).
• FPS (Sampled): The rate at which Kentik has been ingesting flow records from the device over the last six hours. This value is after any downsampling Kentik performs pursuant to the terms of the plan to which the device is assigned.
• FPS (Raw): The rate at which the device has been generating flow records over the last six hours (before any Kentik downsampling).
• Plan FPS: The maximum FPS supported by the plan to which this device is assigned.
• Flow Type: The format of the flow data, e.g. NetFlow v5, v9, IPFIX, or sFlow (see Flow Protocols).
• Sample Rate (Avg): The ratio of total flows per sampled flow (see Flow Sampling).

The Interfaces section of the Details pane contains information related to the interfaces on the device:

• Interfaces Classified: The number of classified interfaces, the total number of interfaces, and the percent of interfaces that have been classified (see About Interface Classification).
• View Interfaces: A button that takes you to the Interfaces page (Settings » Manage Interfaces) where you can manage the interfaces on your devices (see Manage Interfaces).

The SNMP section of the Details pane contains information related to SNMP polling of the device by Kentik (see SNMP OID Polling):

• SNMP status: Current status of SNMP polling:
  - No SNMP Detected (orange): Displayed when SNMP is not detected.
  - SNMP Detected (green): Displayed when SNMP is detected.
• SNMP Polling: The setting at which SNMP is polling (see SNMP Polling Intervals):
  - Standard: SNMP polling is every 5 min for interface counters and 3 hours for descriptions.
  - Minimal: Interface polling is disabled and descriptions are polled every 6 hours.
• SNMP v3 Auth: Indicates whether v3 authentication for SNMP polling is on or off (see About SNMP V3).

The BGP section of the Details pane contains information related to BGP on the device (see BGP Overview):

• BGP status: Current status of BGP peering with the device, e.g. Established, Not Established, or Not Configured.
• BGP Prefixes: For devices with BGP enabled, this indicator shows the number of prefixes currently (within last 5 minutes) in the BGP routing table.

The Streaming Telemetry section of the Details pane shows the status of streaming telemetry from the device to Kentik:

• Disabled (grey): Streaming Telemetry is not enabled in the device's Kentik settings.
• No ST detected (orange): Streaming Telemetry is enabled in the device's Kentik settings, but Kentik is not receiving telemetry from the device.
• ST Detected (green): Streaming Telemetry is enabled and Kentik is receiving telemetry.

The Features section of the Details pane shows information about additional Kentik capabilities on this device:

• CDN attribution: Enabled if the device is a host and its Contribute to CDN Attribution switch is on in the General tab of the Device dialog (see Device General Settings).
• Flowspec: Enabled if the device's BGP Flowspec Compatible switch is on in the BGP tab of the Device settings dialog.
• RTBH: Enabled if the device is assigned to an RTBH mitigation platform (see Configure Platform Devices).

Kentik's labeling feature enables you to create a label (essentially a property whose value is text) and apply it to one or more entities represented within the Kentik portal, creating a group that can be referenced collectively rather than individually (e.g. when filtering). The Devices page includes a set of label-related controls that are located above the Search field. The controls apply only to devices that are currently selected in the Device list:

• Add/Edit Labels: A link to the Labels page, where you can create, edit, or remove labels that are available to apply to the selected devices.
• Clear Labels: Clears the labels that are applied to all currently selected devices.
• Apply Labels: A field that shows, applies, and removes individual device labels (see Apply Labels Field).

The Apply Labels field is active only when one or more devices are selected in the Device list, at which point the field is populated with all labels that are already applied to any selected device. Clicking in the field will drop down a filterable list of labels; clicking on any listed label will add that label to the field and to all selected devices. Clicking the X at the right of a label in the field will remove that label from all selected devices.

Device list filters are available in the Filters pane, which is covered in the following topics:

• Device Filters Pane
• Filter Categories
• Filter Application Rules

The Filters pane to the left of the Device list includes a set of filters that you can use to narrow the list of devices that appear in the table (using Filter Application Rules). This pane includes the following types of controls:

• Reset to default (present only when one or more filters are specified): A button that removes all currently set filters.
• Collapse: A button that collapses the Filters pane. To expand the pane, click the Show/Hide Filters button (see Devices Page).
• Selection field: Each field displays lozenges for criteria selected from that field’s menu and filters the Device list to devices matching those criteria. To select criteria, click in the field and choose an item from the filterable drop-down list. To remove criteria, click the X at the right of its lozenge.
• Checkboxes: Checkboxes allow you choose one or more filter criteria for that category (see Filter Categories). Once checked, the criteria will appear as a lozenge in the Search field. To remove, click the X at the right of its lozenge or uncheck the box in the Filters pane.

Filter criteria for the Device list fall into the following categories:

• Site (selection field): Include only the devices at the selected sites.
• Flow Status (checkboxes): Include only devices whose status is:
  - Direct flow: Device’s flow is coming directly from a router or other network hardware.
  - Kentik Agent: Device’s flow is coming via Kentik's kproxy software agent (see Kentik Proxy Agent).
  - No flow: No flow is detected for the device.
• SNMP status (checkboxes): Include devices based on their current SNMP polling status (Detected or Not Detected).
• Streaming Telemetry Status: Include devices based on their current Streaming Telemetry status (Detected or Not Detected).
• BGP status (checkboxes): Include devices based on their current BGP peering status (Established, Not Established, or Not Configured).
• Plan (selection field): Include only devices with the selected billing plan (see Licenses).
• Label (selection field): Include only devices with the selected labels applied. After clicking the selection field, the drop-down list stays open to select multiple labels. Click off of the list to close it.
• Vendor (checkboxes): Filter devices based on the vendor specified as the device's manufacturer (derived via SNMP polling).
• Type (checkboxes): Filter devices of a given type (see Supported Device Types).
• Flow Type (checkboxes): Filter devices based on the format of the flow data: NetFlow v5, v9, IPFIX, or sFlow (see Flow Protocols).
• Credential (checkboxes): Filter devices based on the credentials used in the device’s settings (see Credentials Vault).

Kentik applies the following rules to filter categories and criteria:

• Criteria are ORed (match any) within categories and ANDed (match all) between categories.
• When criteria are selected in more than one category, a device is displayed only if it matches at least one of the selected criteria in all of the categories with criteria selected.
• When no criteria are selected for a category, the device may match any of the category’s listed criteria.

Adding or editing a device via the Kentik portal involves specifying information with the settings on the tabs of the Device dialog that opens when you click either the Add Device button or the Edit icon in the device's row of the Device list. These settings are covered in detail in Device Settings.

Devices are created and edited via the Devices page of the Kentik portal (choose Settings from the main menu, then Networking Devices under Data Sources). The add/edit process is covered in the following sections:

• Add a Device
• Edit a Device
• Remove a Device
• Enable BGP

Note: Settings made in the topics below may also require changes to your device configuration (see Router Configuration or Host Configuration).

To add (register) a new device:

1. Choose Settings from the main Kentik menu.
2. On the Settings page, click Networking Devices.
3. Click Add Device (at upper right) to open the Device dialog.
4. On the General tab, enter a name in the Name field.
5. Choose the Type (see Supported Device Types), which determines the tab's remaining settings fields.
6. Specify the values of the remaining fields (see Device Settings Dialog).
7. Depending on the type of data you'd like Kentik to collect from the device, specify the settings on the other tabs of the Device Settings Dialog.
8. Save the new device by clicking the Add Device button.

Notes:
- In addition to registering a device, you must also configure the device itself to send data to Kentik; see Router Configuration or Host Configuration.
- For assistance with this process please contact Customer Support.

If you don't need to collect flow from a given device but you'd still like to poll the device for SNMP, you can add an SNMP-only device. To do so, you'll need to be sure that kproxy is installed before performing the following steps (see kproxy Download and Install):

1. Follow the steps in Add a Device to register one or more new devices. For each device, specify Device SNMP Settings on the SNMP tab of the Device settings dialog.
2. On the Devices page, copy the ID of each newly created device, which can be found at the top of the Device Details pane that opens when you click on a device's row in the table.
3. Run kproxy using the argument -bootstrap_devices with a comma-separated list of the IDs for the devices created above:
   /usr/bin/kproxy -bootstrap_devices 104884,88726

Notes:
- For information on SNMP polling, see About SNMP Polling.
- For additional information on the different kproxy command line arguments, see kproxy CLI Reference and kproxy Proxy Agent Arguments.

To edit an existing device:

1. Choose Settings from the main menu.
2. On the Settings page, click Networking Devices.
3. In the Device list, click the edit icon in the row for the device that you'd like to edit, which will open a Device dialog.
4. Edit the settings that you want to change (see Device Settings Dialog).
5. Click Save to save the settings and exit the dialog.

To remove a device:

1. Choose Settings from the main menu.
2. On the Settings page, click Networking Devices.
3. In the Device list, click the Archive icon (file box with down arrow) in the row for the device that you'd like to remove.
4. In the resulting confirmation dialog, read the explanation to fully understand the implications of archiving a device.
5. To proceed, click the Archive button. In the device's row of the Device list, the device will be tagged as "Archived" and the Edit and Archive buttons will be replaced with Restore (file box with up arrow) and Remove (trash icon) buttons.
6. Click Remove.
7. In the resulting confirmation dialog, click Cancel to abort the device removal or Remove to complete the removal of the device.

To enable the collection of BGP data from a device:

1. Choose Settings from the main menu.
2. On the Settings page, click Networking Devices.
3. In the Device list, click the edit icon in the row for the device that you'd like to edit, which will open the Device dialog.
4. On the BGP tab, choose “Peer With Device” from the drop-down BGP Type menu.
5. Specify the remaining settings covered in Device BGP Settings.
6. Click Save to save the new BGP settings and close the dialog.