3.11 Ping Probes - BlueCat Infrastructure Assurance - 25.2.0

Example: Dual-homed ISP failure monitoring

In this example, a device is configured in a dual-homed environment, that is, it is connected to two different ISPs. LiveAssurance connects to a firewall via SSH and runs ICMP ping tests proactively to verify reachability to each ISP.

To configure the ping probe:

1. Navigate to the configuration file ping_probe.config.yaml.

   (Path: /usr/share/indeni-knowledge/stable/ind/parsers/src/crossvendor/probes/crossvendor_probe_ping/ping_probe.config.yaml)

   This file contains the list of probe definitions.

2. Edit the configuration file to define the probe definition for the test, as shown in the following example:

   
   - requirements:
       ip-address : 10.244.29.151
     probes :
       ping :
         - dst : 10.244.29.1
           args:
             - c : 5
         - dst : 10.244.29.2
           args:
             - c : 5
   - requirements:
       ip-address : 10.244.29.162
     probes :
       ping :
         - dst : 10.244.29.80
         - dst : 10.244.29.36
           args:
             - c : 5
         - dst : 10.244.29.152
           args:
             - c : 10

   The probe definition contains two fields:

   • requirements: Specifies the filters that define the devices on which the probe must run. The syntax of this field is the same as the requirements field in other IND files. That is, device tags and logical operators (such as and, or, eq, neq) are supported. In addition, the tag ip-address supports specifying IP addresses with CIDR notation.

     Tip: The simplest way to define the filter is to include only the device IP address, as shown in the above example.

   • probes: Specifies the type of test (in this case, ping) and defines the tests (single or multiple) that will run on the devices matching the specified filters.

     Each test definition contains two fields:

     • dst: The destination (target) IP address that must be pinged.

     • args: Arguments configured for the test.

       In the above example, the option -c specifies the number of ping request packets that must be sent to the target. If the value for this option is not specified, 5 is used by default.

3. LiveAssurance performs a ping test automatically based on the probe definition you've specified.

   1. If the test is successful, the following metrics are collected. To view these metrics in the UI, navigate to the Devices page and select the device specified in the test (10.244.29.162 in this example). From the drawer that appears on the right side of the page, select More Device Info.

      Metric	Visualization
      Packet loss: (in percentage) The percentage of packets that were successfully sent but not received. Packet loss is calculated by dividing the number of lost packets by the number of sent packets.
      RTT min: (in milliseconds) The minimum round-trip time (RTT) calculated from all packets that were successfully received.
      RTT max: (in milliseconds) The maximum RTT calculated from all packets that were successfully received.
      RTT avg: (in milliseconds) The average RTT calculated from all packets that were successfully received.
      RTT mdev: (in milliseconds) The mean deviation of RTT calculated from all packets that were successfully received.

   2. If the test fails, LiveAssurance generates an alert that you can view in the Issues tab. Issue Items are used to identify the failed tests.

      The following image shows an example alert.

      

      The issue resolves itself if the subsequent test is successful. Similar to other issues, it will then go into the cooldown state. If the subsequent test remains unsuccessful, the issue will remain open.

      To view detailed information, click Overview.

      From here, you can access the configuration file (ping_probe.config.yaml) by navigating to the Rule Configuration section and clicking View Configuration, as highlighted in the following image. You are taken to the Knowledge Explorer tab from which you must navigate to the Remediation section and click the code icon (< >).