Last week we introduced OSS_SNMP, a PHP library for performed SNMP queries. Today, we are introducing NOCtools which uses this library to provide a number of useful tools including:

•  CDP Neighbours: for a given CDP enabled device, display its CDP neighbours with information and also a graph showing connected ports.
• CDP L2 Topology: graph the layer 2 network topology based on a recursive crawl of CDP neighbours.
• RSTP Topology & Port Roles: similar to CDP L2 Topology above but this takes a specific VLAN and identifies and graphs Per-VLAN Spanning Tree port roles.
• Per-VLAN RSTP Port Roles: a tool that will display the per-VLAN Rapid STP port roles for a given VLAN (or for all VLANs) on a device.
• Inter-Device VLAN Comparison: a tool that will compare VLANs available (and their respective names) across selected devices allowing you to ensure consistency as well as perform simple security audits.

NOCtools started out as a way to highlight and utilise our OSS_SNMP library but it has since grown into a way to graphically present information on network topology that is normally difficult and cumbersome to do by logging into individual devices. Such information includes a discovered L2 topology by CDP, using this to present rapid-PVST port roles and so forth.

Follow the links about for screen shots and more details. We are releasing this under a GNU GPL license in the hope that the wider networking community will benefit from them.