Using Network Device Searches

A network device search is a way to quickly locate network devices. Your ACS configuration grows by adding more AAA servers and more AAA clients to the configuration. Although the new devices are being added to NDGs, this configuration becomes large, and it is difficult to locate AAA servers and AAA clients when you need to verify information or for troubleshooting. Fortunately, ACS has a network device search feature that allows you to search for network devices that are configured in your table based on the name, which is the IP address. In addition to searching for the IP address as a 32-bit address, you can use a wildcard. For example, you could use 192.168.15.*, where the * would be the wildcard that would search the entire range.

You can also search based on the type, on whether it is an AAA server or AAA client, as well as for the NDG that the device is assigned to. For example, if you know it is assigned to a NDG named California and you find so many AAA servers in California's NDG that it is difficult to manage, you can break down the search in that fashion.

To perform a network device search, perform the following:

Step 1.	Select Network Configuration.
Step 2.	Select Search under the Network Device Groups table.
Step 3.	Enter the host name of the device you are trying to locate. You can leave the asterisk as a wildcard or even enter a partial name with the asterisk appended and search that way.
Step 4.	Enter the IP address in dotted decimal notation. You can also enter an asterisk here in place of any octet.
Step 5.	Using the drop-down menu, select the type of network device you are searching for. The options are any, TACACS+ (Cisco IOS), RADIUS (IETF), Cisco Secure AAA server, TACACS+ AAA server, or RADIUS AAA server.
Step 6.	Using the drop-down menu, select the device group you want to search. The default is any.

NOTE

Any one of the search criteria is sufficient. If you search with the default wildcards, all devices are returned.

In Figure 9-13, a search is performed using the IP address 192.168.*.*. You are asking the search to return all devices that match the IP address of 192.168.anything-in-this-spot.anything-in-this-spot.

Figure 9-13. NDG Search

In Figure 9-14, you see the results of the search. It is apparent that three network devices match the search criteria.

Figure 9-14. NDG Search Results