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Meraki Integration ZenPack

ZenPacks.zenoss.PS.Meraki

This ZenPack adds Discovery, Modeling, and Monitoring for Meraki Network devices managed through the Meraki Dashboard API and SNMP Polling.

SNMP Polling can be enabled for the Dashboard devices (using the SNMP connection information provided for the Organization) and for the Network Devices, if enabled on individual Devices and network connectivity exists between the collector and Device.

API Polling uses the same global API to monitor all devices, so should be available regardless of the network connectivity between Zenoss and the Network Devices.

Subscription

This integration is a subscription-based Professional Services engagement. Our Integration Services are offered as subscriptions in order to provide initial setup and ongoing compatibility and maintenance. All standard packages are renewable every 12 months from the date of purchase. Contact Zenoss to request more information regarding this or any other ZenPacks.

Latest version

3.6.2

Prerequisites

Prerequisite Restriction
Product Zenoss 6.0 or higher
Required ZenPacks ZenPacks.zenoss.PS.Util >= 1.9.3 ZenPacks.zenoss.ZenPackLib >= 2.1.1

Sources of Data Used for this ZenPack

This ZenPack uses several sources of data for modeling and monitoring Meraki Devices. How these are used may differ between Dashboard and Network Devices.

Meraki Dashboard REST API

The Dashboard REST API is used by both the Dashboard and Network Devices for modeling and monitoring (see details in the modeler plugins and configuration sections below).

Meraki SNMP Proxy

The Meraki SNMP proxy is a cloud service that aggregates data from the Network Devices and provides it through a unified SNMP endpoint.

This endpoint is polled from both Dashboard (the meraki.snmp.DashboardDevices modeler) and Network Devices (the meraki.snmp.DeviceInterfaces modeler).

NOTE: The Network Devices pull their SNMP connection information from the zMerakiSnmpHost and zSnmpCommunity properties on the associated Dashboard Device.

Network Device SNMP

This is the traditional SNMP as used elsewhere in Zenoss, where the Device's manageIp is polled directly via SNMP. Use of SNMP polling may not be possible or practical depending on the network architecture. It is expected that most use cases will not support this, but we include it as a 'best effort' to try get as much data as possible from the devices.

The 'zenoss.snmp.InterfaceMap' modeler is included by default.

Connection information is configured with the typical zProperties on the Devices.

Network Device ICMP

The Meraki Network Devices are configured with a customized Ping monitor. Rather than monitoring the manageIp as typical with Zenoss devices, this ZenPack instead monitors the IP address of each of the Uplink components.

Configuration and Adding Dashboard Devices

Add a Meraki Dashboard device in Zenoss under the /Network/Meraki/Dashboard Device Class. The hostname/IP for the device is not used directly for modeling or polling, so can be set to any unique value.

Each added Dashboard device monitors all Networks and Devices in a single Meraki Organization. If multiple Organizations are to be monitored, a Dashboard device will need to be added in Zenoss for each.

SNMP Proxy Polling Configuration

Due to the Meraki SNMP Proxy using the same IP for multiple Organizations, each Dashboard will need to be configured for it's unique SNMP settings (available in the Meraki Dashboard under Organization > Settings > SNMP).

Configure zMerakiSnmpHost and zSnmpCommunity with the settings provided for the Organization in the Meraki Configuration interface.

zMerakiSnmpHost also specifies the port to use, for example: "snmp.meraki.com:16100"

SNMP Polling from the Dashboard provides the following Components and Monitoring on the Dashboard Device.

  • Meraki Devices
    • Num of Clients
    • Device Status

Additionally this information is used on the Meraki Devices to model and monitor

  • Device Interfaces

    • Packet / Bytes Throughput

SNMP Traps Configuration

SNMP Trap translation is provided by the ZenPack. Configure the Devices to send SNMP Traps to Zenoss to create Events.

API Configuration

Note

Starting in version 3.3.0, these zProperties are pulled from the corresponding Dashboard device for all end devices. The zProperties on individual devices will be ignored. This is to support changing API credentials, so that only the Dashboard device needs to be updated.

Configure the following zProperties to enable the API communication:

zMerakiAPIBaseUrl
Will likely always use the default: 'https://api.meraki.com/api'
zMerakiAPIKey
API Key for the monitoring user to use for API queries
zMerakiAPIRequestRetries
The number of retries allowed if the Dashboar API rate-limiting blocks a request. An increasing backoff is applied and the request will be retried.
zMerakiAPIRequestRetriesBackOffFactor
This property will be used as a minimum retry-after time in case Meraki API doesn't sedn Retry-After time for 429 response.

In addition, the Organization ID will need to be set (editable on the Device Overview page). If the ID is unknown, this can be left unset and the 'meraki.rest.Organizations' modeling plugin will pull a list of the Organizations the API user can access and display them on the Dashboard Device Overview Page.

If manually adding end Devices (not using the built-in discovery) then each Device will also need to be configured for the organizationId and Device Serial Number.

HTTP Proxy Configuration

If use of an HTTP Proxy is required to communicate with the Meraki Dashboard API, the following zProperties will be used.

zMerakiAPIProxyHost
(Optional) Hostname or IP of the Proxy. If blank, no proxy will be configured.
zMerakiAP`IProxyPort
TCP Port of the Proxy (default: 80)
zMerakiAPIProxyUser
(Optional) Username for Basic Authentication
zMerakiAPIProxyPassword
(Optional) Password for Basic Authentication

Modeling

Dashboard Devices

The following modeler plugins are provided for Dashboard Devices.

  • meraki.snmp.DashboardDevices
    • Creates Device components for the Network Devices returned from the Meraki SNMP Proxy.
  • meraki.rest.Organizations
    • Retrieves the list of Organizations that the configured API Key can be used to access and displays on the Dashboard Device Overview page. Note that only one Organization can be configured on each Dashboard device in Zenoss (zMerakiOrganizationId). This plugin allows auditing of the access provided to the user. In a shared environment, care should be taken to ensure the user is restricted to the proper Organizations.
  • meraki.rest.NetworksAndDevices
    • Creates components for the Networks and Network Devices reported by the Dashboard API. Upon modeling, this plugin will create Devices in zMerakiDeviceClass corresponding to the Devices reported in the Dashboard. Devices no longer reported via the API will be removed. Networks that match zMerakiNetworkNamesIgnore will be excluded from modeling (see Discovery configuration section for more).

Network Devices

  • zenoss.snmp.InterfaceMap
    • If SNMP is configured, this plugin creates and monitors network interfaces on the Device.
  • meraki.rest.Device
    • Model and monitor the following Device properties via the API. These are shown on the Device Overview page.
      • name
      • networkName
      • organizationName
      • lanIp
      • mac
      • model
      • notes
      • NOTE: 'name' is mapped to the Zenoss device Title - if the device name is set in Meraki then this will override the Title set on the device.
    • meraki.rest.DeviceUplinks
      • Model and monitor the Uplinks available on the Device via the API. Models both Uplinks (physical links) and Cellular Uplinks.
    • meraki.snmp.DeviceInterfaces

      • Create Device Interface components as reported by the Meraki SNMP Proxy. These are components polled from the SNMP settings configured on the Dashboard Device.

        There is also a 'speed' attribute on the DeviceInterface components. This is a user-editable attribute provided for convenience in tracking the available speed of links for use in reporting, but must be manually set by the customer as this information is not available in the Meraki API.

Monitoring

Dashboard Devices

  • Meraki Dashboard SNMP Proxy
    • merakiDevTemplate: Monitors the Device components on the Dashboard device.
      • Device Status
      • Client Count

Network Devices

  • SNMP (direct to devices, if enabled)
    • zenoss.snmp.InterfaceMap Modeler plugin can be enabled to model and monitor Network Interfaces if direct SNMP polling is supported.
  • Meraki Dashboard SNMP Proxy
    • merakiDevInterfaceTemplateMonitors the Device Interface components from the Meraki SNMP Proxy. Note this uses the SNMP connection settings from the associated Dashboard device.

  • Dashboard API

    • DeviceMonitors the Device status via the Dashboard API.

    • merakiDeviceLatencyThis template monitors Uplink components. Latency and Loss metrics are monitored via the API. If no metrics are reported for an Uplink, it is considered to be in an invalid state and an event is created with the 'merakiUplinkLatency' eventClassKey.

    • merakiCellularUplink:Template specific for monitoring Cellular Uplinks. Monitors Ping RTT (with ICMP as mentioned below), Latency, Loss, Status, and 'signalStat' metrics (rsrp, rsrq) from the API. The default template for Status Monitoring raises an event for any Status other than 'Ready'.

    • ICMP
    • Monitors Ping RTT with ICMP for Uplinks with an assigned IP address. Note that this uses a custom monitor which ignores zPingMonitorIgnore. Use zPythonPingMonitorIgnore to disable Ping monitoring instead.

Discovery

Discovery of Meraki Network Devices is provided by the meraki.rest.NetworksAndDevices plugin on the Dashboard device.

The following zProperties control the Discovery behavior:

zMerakiDeviceClass
Device Class in Zenoss in which new Devices discovered from Meraki will be added. The default will work (/Network/Meraki/Device), but it is recommended to create a custom sub-class if monitoring templates will be customized.
zMerakiDeviceClassMapping
A list of mappings of device Model prefix to Device Class for newly discovered Devices. These model-specific mappings override the zMerakiDeviceClass default.
zMerakiCreateDevices
Whether to create new Meraki Network Devices that are discoverd through the Dashboard API by the meraki.rest.NetworksAndDevices modeler plugin.
zMerakiRemoveDevices
Whether to remove Meraki Network Devices that are no longer reported by the Dashboard API.
zMerakiSkipDeviceIps
If set, don't add the device's Lan IP address to the newly created device. This will leave the manageIp unset, so SNMP and ICMP modeling/monitoring will be unavailable, but API monitoring will still function. Useful for networks where network space may overlap and IP address conflicts would exist.
zMerakiNetworkNamesIgnore
When modeling Networks from the Dashboard, any Network Names that match a regex provided in this zProperty will not be modeled. Any devices in these Networks will also be excluded.
zMerakiDefaultProdState
The default Production State to assign to created devices. NOTE: This is NOT automatically updated after creation, if devices are created with a non-production state, it will require a separate workflow to update these to production.
zMerakiAgentConnectTimeout
The amount of time (seconds) that HTTP Agent will wait for the peer to accept a connection.
zMerakiAgentPoolMaxPersistentConnections
The maximum number of cached persistent connections for a host. Need to be set only at the /Network/Meraki device class.
zMerakiAgentPoolCachedConnectionTimeout
Number of seconds a cached persistent connection will stay open before disconnecting. Need to be set only at the /Network/Meraki device class.
zMerakiClientCacheTTL
The amount of time (seconds) that Client will store cached data. It is recommended to set it the same for all devices belong to a single organisation.

Note: in order to apply new zMerakiClientCacheTTL, zMerakiAgentPoolMaxPersistentConnections and zMerakiAgentPoolCachedConnectionTimeout values, zenpython service need to be restarted.

The Device Class used for new Devices is controlled with zMerakiDeviceClass and zMerakiDeviceClassMapping. If the Products Model matches a prefix specified in zMerakiDeviceClassMapping, the corresponding Device Class will be used. If a matching prefix is not found, the class in zMerakiDeviceClass will be used.

For example, the following entry will place MS-120-8 Devices in /Network/Meraki/Device/Switch:

MS:/Network/Meraki/Device/Switch

Events are created on the Dashboard device in Zenoss for auditing new or removed Devices, using the eventClassKeys 'MerakiDeviceAdded' and 'MerakiDeviceRemoved'.

These Devices will then perform SNMP polling (if configured) and their own API modeling and monitoring (against the same Dashboard API).

If Devices are removed from the Meraki Network, they will automatically be removed from Zenoss during modeling (unless disabled with zMerakiRemoveDevices).

Scaling Issues

The Meraki Dashboard API enforces a rate limit of 5 requests per second. To handle this limitation, requests from Zenoss are deduplicated and cached as appropriate to minimize the total number of requests. Where available, requests for device aggregated data are used to avoid a separate requests per Device.

The update to the Dashboard v1 API reduces the total number of requests needed to gather information, as endpoints now aggregate data from multiple devices. However especially large Meraki organizations may still encounter issues, or if there are other systems also using the API that consume the available requests (which are enforced on a per-organization basis, so any user will count toward this rate limiting).

It may be necessary to reduce the cycleTime of template datasources if ongoing issues are noticed (events will be raised warning of the failures).

Example Configuration - Monitoring the Cisco DevNet Sandbox

This configuration monitors the 'Meraki Always On' Sandbox Lab provided at https://devnetsandbox.cisco.com/ (The following credentials may change, login to confirm the current settings).

  • Add a Dashboard Device under /Network/Meraki/Dashboard.

    • Since this lab does not have SNMP support, the IP or hostname used does not matter.

    • Title: Meraki DevNet

    • zMerakiAPIKey: 6bec40cf957de430a6f1f2baa056b99a4fac9ea0

    • zMerakiOrganizationId: 549236

  • Model the Device

  • New Devices should be available under /Network/Meraki/Device, and should appear in the System Organizer 'Meraki'.

  • Model the new Devices - again SNMP is disabled so we'll only have Uplink components for monitoring.

Common Troubleshooting Tips

  • SNMP Agent Down Events

    • The Meraki Device classes include zenoss.snmp.DeviceMap and zenoss.snmp.InterfaceMap by default. If the Devices are not reachable from the collector, for example, when monitoring remote branches, these plugins can be disabled.

  • SNMP Timeout Errors

    • The Meraki SNMP proxy may occasionally timeout - increasing zSnmpTimeout can help.

  • Dashboard SNMP issues

    • SNMP polling on dashboards uses a custom zProperty. Make sure to setup the zProps as detailed under "SNMP Proxy Polling Configuration" above.

Changes

3.6.2

  • Features
    • Add setProductKet to modeler

3.6.1

  • Fixes
    • Client requests for NetworkDevices and DeviceUplinks collect paginated results.

3.6.0

  • Fixes
    • Reduce the occurrence and fix the event message for Intermittent Twisted Connection Lost Errors / Events

3.5.2

  • Fixes
    • Updated twisted client to use HTTP Connection Pool
    • Added client cache and agent timeouts to configurations
    • Added a millisecond wait before returning Client cache

3.5.1

  • Fixes
    • Remove default Device SNMP sysUpTime template for Dashboard Devices

3.5.0

  • Features
    • Add zMerakiDefaultProdState
  • Fixes
    • Unicode encoding breaks ConfigurationManager integration.
    • Some devices mapped to wrong Network in Systems organizers
    • Fix DeviceUplinks modeler skipped when Organization has no Uplinks on any devices.

3.4.2

  • Fixes
    • Fix some requests caching to invalid Url, effectively skipping caching.

3.4.1

  • Fixes
    • Fix DeviceUplinks modeler processing skipped if no Device results.

3.4.0

  • Features
    • Increase internal response cache from 180 Seconds to 290 seconds (just under 5 minute cycle).
  • Fixes
    • DeviceUplinks modeler previously would not update if there were no components, leaving any prior found components (especially an issue on Switch and Access Point devices which don't have Uplinks in Dashboard API v1).

3.3.0

  • Features
    • Remove Latency and Loss monitoring from Cellular components - data not provided in API
    • Pull API connection details from Dashboard device, not end devices.
    • API Client queueing update - previously API Requests from all Organizations shared the same queue, giving larger organizations more access since more devices added more tasks to the same queue. Now ensure equal access for all organizations to minimize the impact of a single large organization with failing requests blocking the queue with retries.
    • Fix traceback in MerakiUplinkStatusDataSourcePlugin when missing Uplink data.

3.2.0

  • Features
    • Enable merakiUplinkStatus status monitoring template for 'Uplink' components
    • Add the /Network/Meraki/Device/Teleworker device class for Z series Gateways (the new default mapping adds 'Z:/Network/Meraki/Device/Teleworker' but will not affect existing installs).
  • Fixes
    • Fix tracebacks in Cellular Uplink monitoring when missing some fields in API.
    • Remove Ping monitoring from Cellular Uplinks by default (the merakiPingStatus template can be added where needed).

3.1.0

  • Features
    • Add zMerakiNetworkNamesIgnore to ignore Networks by Names
    • Add 'Cellular Uplink' components and monitoring.
  • Fixes
    • Fix missing pagination in requests leading to missing components / monitoring.

3.0.0

  • Features
    • Switch to Dashboard API v1 endpoints
    • Remove 'networkType' modeled attribute, no longer present in API
    • Default Device ID no longer includes network name as device may be moved between networks.

2.2.0

  • Fixes
    • Missing 'devMac' causes a traceback in modeler
    • MerakiUplinkLatencyDataSourcePlugin - separate events for missing datapoints and polling issues.

2.1.2

  • Fixes
    • Fix "NotFound is not defined" error when running jobs

2.1.1

  • Fixes
    • Index devices on creation to add to Catalog

2.1.0

  • Features
    • Add 'speed' attribute to Device Interface components for manual tracking.

2.0.0

  • Features
    • The Device Interfaces component is moved from the Dashboard Devices to the Network Devices. Note that existing components on the Dashboards may remain in place to preserve historical data. However, these will no longer be modeled or monitored, so they will need to be manually deleted if the data is no longer needed.

1.7.1

  • Fixes
    • Move Device Status event to /Status/Meraki/Device since events in /Status/Ping disable monitoring.

1.7.0

  • Fixes
    • Move Device Status event to /Status/Ping to provide availability for reporting.

1.6.0

  • Fixes
    • Add missing eventClass mappings causing events in /Unknown class
    • Allow editing CycleTime in datasources.
    • Include snmpindex in component details to be accessible through the API
    • add zMerakiSkipDeviceIps to allow creating devices without manageIPs
    • Update UplinkStatus monitoring to not use a separate API call, rather derive from Latency monitoring status.

1.5.0

  • Features
    • Add HTTP Proxy support

1.4.3

  • Features
    • Improved logging details for missing 'lanIp' on devices.

1.4.2

  • Fixes
    • Add migration to rebuild device relations.

1.4.1

  • Fixes
    • Remove port from zMerakiSnmpHost default - use zSnmpPort instead
    • 'Ready' is a valid status for merakiUplinkStatus
    • Relationship for MerakiDevInterface to MerakiDevice

1.4.0

  • Features
    • Add zMerakiSnmpHost to override SNMP connection IP to connect to Meraki proxy.
    • Now requires ZenPacks.zenoss.PS.Util >= 1.7.0

1.3.0

  • Features
    • Add Uplink Ping Monitoring DataSource
    • Model Meraki Device Name in meraki.rest.Device
    • Now requires ZenPacks.zenoss.PS.Util >= 1.3.0

1.2.0

  • Features
    • Disable Ping based monitoring by default, use device status from Meraki API.
    • Split DeviceClasses based on zMerakiDeviceClassMapping

1.1.1

  • Fixes
    • Fix catalog load to create missing index.

1.1.0

  • Features
    • Remove the zMerakiOrganizationId zProperty, replace with a Device property and add to the Device Overview page.
    • Discovery no longer depends on Device ID so that Devices can be created manually or the ID changed.
    • Use the Device Name from the Meraki API for Device Title
    • Update Device and Uplink Status Templates to set Event Class and Severity