Connectivity Checker

The Kentik portal's Connectivity Checker module is covered in the following topics:

• About Connectivity Checker
• Connectivity Checker Page
• Connectivity Checker Dashboard
• Create Report Page
• Report Details
• Manage Reports

Note: For general information about monitoring your cloud resources with Kentik, start with Cloud Overview.

An overview of the Connectivity Checker is provided in the following topics:

• Connectivity Checker Overview
• Connectivity Checker Workflow

The Connectivity Checker workflow (Beta) analyzes AWS or Azure metadata collected from Kentik-monitored cloud environments and inventories subnets, instances, and VPCs to determine how they communicate. Monitor and visualize the forward and return paths between two points on your cloud network. This tool enables you to identify potential issues, such as dropped connections between two endpoints, so network teams can quickly fix problems.

Note: The Connectivity Checker does not establish network connections. Instead, it analyzes metadata from your cloud environment to simulate and illustrate the communication paths between two points.

The workflow is composed of two main parts:

• Create Report: Use the Create Report Page to define parameters for your analysis. You can run an ad-hoc analysis or save it as a report for future reference.
• View Report: Saved reports are listed in the Previously Run Reports table, from which you can link to an individual Report Details page, which provides a detailed visualization of the connection analysis to help you troubleshoot failed connectivity tests.

The Connectivity Checker landing page serves as a gateway to the checker dashboards for our currently supported cloud providers. The page includes the following UI elements:

• Preview: A tabbed pane showing a preview of the different Connectivity Checker pages:
  - Report List: An image showing a Connectivity Checker Dashboard.
  - Report Detail: An image showing a Report Details page.
• Description: A description of Connectivity Checker.
• Providers: A set of buttons to select the cloud provider whose Connectivity Checker dashboard you'd like to see:
  - Show AWS Dashboard: A button that takes you to the AWS Connectivity Checker dashboard.
  - Show Azure Dashboard: A button that takes you to the Azure Connectivity Checker dashboard.

The AWS and Azure dashboards each include the same UI elements for their respective cloud environment:

• Create Report: A button that takes you to the Create Report Page.
• Previously Run Reports: A table that lists your Previously Run Reports.

The Previously Run Reports table is a sortable table that lists the reports that you have previously generated and saved. Click on the heading of any column to sort the list. The table includes the following columns:

• Reachability: Indicates whether there is a connectivity issue between the source and destination:
  - Reachable (green checkmark): Connection is successful between the source and destination.
  - Not reachable (red X): Connection is unsuccessful between the source and destination.
• Report Name: The name of the report.
• Source: The source entity from which the connection path originates.
• Destination: The destination entity at which the connection path terminates.
• Last analysis date: The date the connection analysis was most recently performed.
• View Report: A button to take you to the Report Details page.
• Remove (trash icon): Opens a confirmation popup from which you can remove the report from the list of saved reports.

The Create Report page is covered in the following topics:

• Create Report UI
• Save Report UI

The Create Report page is used to run a connectivity check between two endpoints. The Create Report page contains the following UI elements:

• Name: The name of this report. If left blank, a name will be autogenerated for the report using the source and destination values.
• Source type: A drop-down from which you choose the type of the sources that will be available on the Source drop-down:
  - Network Interfaces (AWS only): AWS network interfaces.
  - Subnets: AWS or Azure subnets.
  - Instance (AWS only): AWS instances.
• Source: A drop-down list from which you can choose the starting point for the connectivity check using the Selection Controls.
• Target type: A drop-down from which you choose the type of the destinations that will be available on the Destination drop-down. The types available for a given cloud provider's targets are the same as for that provider's sources.
• Destination: A drop-down to select the destination using the Selection Controls.
• Time Range: A drop-down that pops up the Custom Time Range Settings.
• Port: The port used to establish the connection.
• Cancel: A button to cancel the report creation and exit the page.
• Run: A button to run an analysis on the connection and generate a report. This will take you to the Save Report UI page.

The following controls, which open by clicking the Source or Destination drop-down, are available to select the source and destination:

• Filter: Enter text to filter the drop-down by ID or name.
• Entity: The ID and name of the source or destination. Hover over the entity to view additional Selection Details pertaining to the source or destination.

The Selection Details popup contains the following information for the source and destination of each entity type:

• Name: The name of the source or destination.
• PrivateIpAddress (Network Interfaces and Instance only): The private IP address.
• PublicIpAddress (Instance only): The public IP address.
• PrivateDnsName (Instance only): The private DNS name.
• PublicDnsName (Instance only): The public DNS name.
• SubnetId (Network Interfaces and Instance only): The subnet from which the connection path originates or terminates.
• VpcId: The Virtual Private Cloud from which the connection path originates or terminates.
• CidrBlock (Subnets only): The CIDR block from which the subnet originates or terminates.

The Save Report page contains the UI elements covered in Report Details UI, as well as the following additional elements:

• Save Report: A button to save the report to the Previously Run Reports table.
• Errors: The report visualization displays Error Details if an error occurs during the analysis.

Note: The Save Report page is only available immediately after the Run button is clicked during the creation of a report.

The following information is shown if an error occurs during the analysis:

• Type: The entity type.
• ID: The ID of the entity.
• Copy (clipboard icon): A button that copies the ID to the clipboard.
• Error (red error icon): Hover over the icon to view the error. Click on the icon to go to the cloud console.

The Details page for reports is covered in the following topics:

• Report Details UI
• Connection Paths

The Report Details page displays a detailed visualization of the analyzed connection. It contains two main sections showing the connection path and each transit point from the source to the destination and vice versa. The Report Details page contains the following UI elements:

• Source: The type (e.g. subnet) and name of the source from which the connection originates. The link opens (in a new tab) the details page for this entity in Network Explorer (see Core Detail Pages).
• Destination: The type and name of the destination at which the connection terminates. The link opens (in a new tab) the details page for this entity in Network Explorer (see Core Detail Pages).
• Port: The port used to establish the connection.
• Last Run: The timestamp for when the report was created.
• Start Time: The timestamp for the start of the connection assessment period.
• End Time: The timestamp for the end of the connection assessment period.
• Forward Paths: A pane containing a depiction of the sequence of entities the connection traverses from the source to the destination (see Connection Paths).
• Return Paths: A pane that depicts the sequence of entities the connection traverses from the destination back to the source (see Connection Paths).

The Forward Paths and Return Paths panes each include the following UI elements:

• Path: A sequence of Transit Points that the connection travels through, starting from the source and ending at the destination or vice versa.
• Connection Visualization: A set of shaded rectangles that each represent a region and contain the path entities within that region (see Connection Visualization).

Each transit point on the path contains the following information:

• Type: The entity type for the transit point.
• ID: The ID of the entity.
• Copy: A button that copies the ID to the clipboard.

The visualization represents the sequence of paths traversed by the connection and contains the following UI elements:

• Region: Containers (shaded rectangles) that segment the visualization by regions, making it evident when a connection crosses regional boundaries.
• VPC (AWS only): Containers (outlined rectangles) nested within the regional containers to group the various connection points by their VPC. This helps to visualize when a connection enters or leaves a VPC.
• VN (Azure only): Containers (outlined rectangles) nested within the regional containers to group the various connection points by their VN.
• Transit Point: A rectangle representing one entity. Click an entity to open a popup with options for viewing additional information:
  - AWS Map: Takes you to the AWS Cloud Topology view of Kentik Map.
  - Azure Map: Takes you to the Azure Cloud Topology view of Kentik Map.
  - Show in AWS Console: Takes you to the AWS console.

The following topics describe how to manage reports:

• Add a Report
• Remove a Report
• Add a Report From Kentik Map

Note: Reports may be added from the Connectivity Checker page or using the Cloud Topology view of Kentik Map

To run an analysis and add a report from the Connectivity Checker:

1. Open the Connectivity Checker page (Cloud » Connectivity Checker).
2. Click the Create Report button to open the Create Report Page.
3. Specify the values of the fields on the form (see Create Report UI).
4. Run the analysis by clicking the Run button.
5. On the following page, add the report by clicking the Save button (see Save Report UI).

To run an analysis and add a report via Kentik Map:

1. Open the Cloud Topology view in the Kentik Map (Kentik Map » Clouds » View Topology).
2. Select a VPC or subnet object to open a popup.
3. In the popup, click on Connectivity Checker. This will take you to the Create Report Page with the source field automatically pre-filled.
4. Specify the remaining values of the fields on the form (see Create Report UI).
5. Run the analysis by clicking the Run button.
6. On the following page, add the report by clicking the Save button (see Save Report UI).

To remove a saved report:

1. Open the Connectivity Checker landing page (Cloud » Connectivity Checker).
2. Choose the Connectivity Checker Dashboard corresponding to the cloud provider in which the report was created.
3. In the Previously Run Reports list, find the row for the report that you'd like to remove.
4. At the right of the row, click the Remove button (trash icon).
5. In the resulting confirmation popup, click the Remove button. The popup will close and the report will be removed from the list.