Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series, Software Configuration Manual

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Catalyst 4500 Series Switch, Cisco IOS Software Configuration Guide - Cisco IOS XE 3.9.xE and IOS 15.2(5)Ex
Chapter 16 Configuring the Catalyst 4500 Series Switch with Cisco Network Assistant
Managing a Network Using Community
Note Do not disable CDP on candidates, members, or on any network devices that you might want Network
Assistant to discover.
Note
PIX firewalls do not support the CDP, so they are not automatically shown as neighbors in the Topology
view. They are shown only after you add them to a community with the Create Community or Modify
Community window. To see a PIX firewall link to another community member, you must add the link
manually by selecting ADD Link in the Topology popup menu.
You can edit the list of discovered devices to fit your needs and add them to the community. As each
device is added to the community, its neighbors are discovered and added to the list of candidate devices.
If Network Assistant fails to discover a device, you can add it manually through the IP management IP
address.
Community Names
When you apply the community configuration information to the list of member devices, Network
Assistant requests that you enter a name (or IP address) for the community. You need to assign a name
to the community before you can manage it. Network Assistant saves the name to your PC.
The community name can consist of the characters 0 through 9, a through z and A through Z, with spaces
allowed between the characters.
Note
You can connect to a cluster only through an IP address. When you select a name the name is always for
the community.
Hostnames
You do not need to assign a hostname to a starting device or a community member. However, we
recommend that you do assign a hostname because Network Assistant does not assign one by default. If
a discovered device does have a hostname, Network Assistant saves it to your PC as identifying
information for that device along with its IP address, communication protocol, and designated protocol
port.
Passwords
Although you do not need to assign a password to a device if it will become a community member, we
recommend that you do so.
Community members can have different passwords.
Communication Protocols
Network Assistant uses the HTTP or HTTPS protocols to communicate with network devices. It attempts
communication with HTTP or HTTPS when using CDP to discover candidate devices.