Need Help Inventorying IT Assets in a Lab Setup
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CuriousCoder42
Hi everyone! I'm working on a project for my professor where I need to inventory all the devices in one server room and eight labs in our department. This includes servers, routers, switches, printers, wireless access points, PCs, VoIP phones, NAS devices, and more. The catch is that I don't have any special credentials—just a Ubuntu server VM connected to the LAN. I'm considering using both active and passive scanning tools for this task. Can anyone recommend some open-source software, either command line or web-based, that can help me gather details like IP addresses, hostnames, device names, types, manufacturers, and any additional information? Any guidance would be much appreciated!
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Check out Advanced IP Scanner for a straightforward option. It provides basic info like IP, MAC addresses, and sometimes manufacturer names.
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You might want to start with Nmap; it’s a great tool for network scanning. Just a heads up, it might set off some security alerts, though!
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Most of the devices you listed should respond to SNMP queries. That could give you a lot of details without too much hassle.
CuriousCoder42: Nice! I've been experimenting with tools like OpenAudit and Netdisco, but I'm struggling with bare-metal servers and the PCs. Any tips on how to tackle those?
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CuriousCoder42: Haha, that's funny! Good to know, but honestly, our department's network is so lax on monitoring that I doubt they’d catch anything. Thanks for the tip!