LabTech has many tools that can assist in the network-troubleshooting process. From network sniffing to wake on LAN to Network Monitoring, LabTech has your network covered. If you suspect a problem application on your network, you can start a network sniffer and view the data collected from the Control Center. You can view all ports that computers have open on the Computer Screen. You can also view the network as the user sees it, so even if the mail server seems up, you can detect that the computer with the problem cannot see the mail server. LabTech also has a full monitoring system for monitoring and troubleshooting an entire network. When errors occur, LabTech can run a diagnostic script, autofix script, and notify your system administrators of the problem.
| Network Sniffing and Reporting |
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[Read More] [View Demo] |
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| Wake on LAN | [Read More] | |
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| Security Analysis on Open Ports | [Read More] | |
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| Network Monitoring | [Read More] | |
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| Network Probe with SNMP Traps | [Read More] |
Network Sniffing and Reporting
If a problem exists on a network, your system administrators can get the root of the problem by running a Network Sniffer. You can select the local machine the Remote Agent is running on or select another IP address to sniff. The data is collected locally on the remote agent you run the sniff on, then copied to the Labtech shared directory with a file name of the computer name. This can be opened with Wireshark © and many other network analyzer applications. Wireshark can be launched from the Control Center, so it is a good choice of an application to use and it is freeware.
[Click here to see a quick demo on setting up a network sniff]
From the Computer Screen, click the network icon and select Start Sniffer to initiate
Wake on LAN
If a system is off or in standby and there is another computer on the network with LabTech running, you can send a Wake on LAN packet to the computer to wake it up. LabTech uses the computer that is up and running to send the wakeup packet to the system. The system will wake up and be available to connect to through LabTech.
From the Computer Screen, click the network icon and select Wake on Lan Packet to initiate
Security Analysis of Open Ports
If there are security concerns on a system, you can view the open ports on the computer using the Network Tab of the Computer Screen in the Control Center.
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You can also initiate a port scan of another computer on the network through the computer screen.
If you go to the commands tab of the computer screen, you can see the results of the scan. All ports listed are open and it lists the result of the query. This scan utility is also a script. A script can be created that parses the results and performs test actions on ports if they are open.
Network Monitoring
LabTech has a very advanced network monitoring system built into every remote agent. There are two big advantages of monitoring from the agent installation. First, network bandwidth utilized by the monitoring is substantially reduced because only failures are reported up to the central LabTech Server. Secondly, it simplifies the dependencies required in most monitoring tools. If the local agent monitors everything on the local network and a remote agent monitors the status of the agent, you do not need to configure all the monitors to check for dependencies. The monitoring configuration is done through the Control Center. There is a web based NOC screen that summarizes the status of everything monitored on your network. This can be found at the internal labtech page/agents/default.aspx.
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The Labtech monitoring tools can monitor with anything from ping to SNMP traps. Monitors can also be setup for any information collected by the system. The alerts generated by the monitor can alert by phone, text, email, or pager. Tickets can be automatically generated. Once the alert occurs system administrators can immediately work on the issue through the ticket. If the alert has a script available to automatically fix or diagnose the issue, the system will automatically fix the problem or run the diagnostics and send the results to the system administrator.
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Troubleshooting time is reduced by pinpointing the point of failure and running diagnostics when the error is detected. The system will automatically run a repair script if the problem has a fix assigned to it. Additionally, the system organizes all monitoring, system information, and support tools into one location, so troubleshooting and fixing issues is easier than it has ever been.
Network Probe with SNMP Traps
Any agent can be configured to be a network probe. The network probes automatically discover all network devices on the network. Information can be associated with the items discovered and monitors can be setup to detect outages. The Network Probe can be used to push LabTech out to supported devices. If a device has SNMP, the probe can detect SNMP traps that are configured on the devices.
