Onboarding: 10 Tips and Tricks

To help with Domotz onboarding, this article covers the top tips and tricks for using our software. Here’s our list of the most frequent topics raised by our users during their Domotz onboarding process.

VLANs wrongly entered as “Routed Networks”

Do not use “Configure Routed Networks Scan” for VLANs. The routed network scan is intended for site-to-site VPN or similar connections (Layer 3 – scans). When you configure a routed network, you will only see IP Address information, as routed networks do not pass Layer-2 information, such as MAC Addresses.

Instead, see here how to configure VLANs in Domotz: https://help.domotz.com/user-guide/vlan-network-interface-configuration/

Kindly be aware that if you have set up VLANs as routed networks, Domotz will be unable to retrieve MAC addresses from your devices. As a result, it will lack the ability to classify them based on brand, model, or type, and those devices may also be excluded from the Network Topology.

References:

Automated Discovery and Inventory – Domotz Help Center

Configure VLANs in Domotz – Domotz Help Center

Incorrect Network Topology

After deploying Domotz on your network, you may encounter situations where accessing the network topology screen reveals inaccurate network links, leading to an incorrect topology map display.

To ensure an accurate network topology map, it is essential to activate SNMP and to provide Domotz correct SNMP credentials on ALL your managed switches.

To verify this, please inspect the SNMP settings on each of your switches and confirm the SNMP Status.
To do that, please go to the inventory dashboard in the ‘Devices’ section ad filter the devices as detailed in the following screenshot:

If you need instructions on how to configure SNMP on your switches please see here:

https://help.domotz.com/onboarding-guides/how-to-get-started-with-domotz/#htoc-setting-up

and here:

https://help.domotz.com/tips-tricks/how-to-set-custom-snmp-credentials-in-domotz/

Set Collector Location on the Map

By default, Domotz uses ISP localization to determine an Agent’s location. To make the Agent’s location accurate on the map, you can set the Agent’s address. In the Domotz application, select your Agent > Agent & Customer Configuration > Customer > Please Set The Agent Location. Here you can enter the address to have the Agent correctly reflected on the map of the Sites Explorer page. 

References:

Agent & Customer Configuration (Customer Management) – Domotz Help Center

Unlock Devices

You may need to unlock a device to gather more information from a it. A device with a lock icon indicates that more data may be available. Unlock devices with a lock icon with the required credentials (SSH, HTTP, HTTPS, WinRM). This is necessary for firewalls, switches, and APs. Optional for servers, workstations, PDU/UPS, IP cameras, and others. 

This step is not applicable for devices where Domotz has a controller or cloud integration. Please see this page for the Ubiquiti controller integration, and this page for the Meraki Cloud integration.

Unlock/Management can also be performed also from the Inventory dashboard by checking the “Insights” column:

References:

Unlock Domotz OS Monitoring feature – Operating System Monitoring

Network Configuration Management – Domotz Help Center

SNMP

Enable the SNMP service on your switches, servers, and devices.
If you use standard community strings (public, private), Domotz will automatically start building your network topology:

*This step is not applicable for devices where Domotz has a controller or cloud integration. Please see this page for the Ubiquiti controller integration, and this page for the Meraki Cloud integration. 

and start populating the “Insights” column in the “Inventory view”:

If you configured SNMP with custom SNMP credentials, check out this article instead: https://help.domotz.com/user-guide/how-to-set-custom-snmp-credentials-in-domotz/

A device will be “SNMP enabled” once you see the SNMP status set as READ:

Typically, network infrastructure devices (switches, firewalls, WAPs) are the only ones that require unlocking. Servers, workstations, and other devices only need to be unlocked if you want to extract additional information Domotz doesn’t automatically pull from the device.

You can add SNMP sensors to devices to get information Domotz does not automatically extract. Domotz will also provide pre-configured SNMP sensor templates to add to each device.

Please see our article on pre-configured sensors.

If you have multiple devices of the same type and you would like to monitor the same sensors, check out this article to see how to export/import them in bulk: https://help.domotz.com/user-guide/inventory/#htoc-export-import-device-settings-and-properties

References:

Setting up SNMP on Network Managed switches

How to set custom SNMP credentials in Domotz

Setting up Alerts

Navigate to Alerts Settings in the left sidebar. Click Connect Account next to any 3rd party tools you would like to integrate with (ticketing systems, PSA tools, messaging tools, etc.). Click Create a Shared Alert, select your contact channel, and select the events for which you would like to receive alerts. To apply the Shared Alert to your networks and devices, you can use the Inventory dashboard or select an Collector > Collector Settings > Apply the Shared Alert to your devices and the network.

Consider setting up alerts for your Domotz Collector as a great place to start for creating your first alert. Here is more information about this: https://help.domotz.com/user-guide/how-to-get-started-with-domotz/#htoc-setting-up-your-first-domotz-alert

After setting up your first alert for your Domotz Collector, you can create other shared alerting profiles to monitor your devices. To understand better the various alert event types and how to use them, please refer to this article: https://help.domotz.com/user-guide/shared-alerts-events-list-explained/

Based on numerous customer requests and feedback, here is a recommendation for two Shared Alerts to start with: 

1 – Create a Shared Alert (which you can call ‘Collector and Network Monitoring‘), which monitors your Collector and Network Events.

– Select the following Network Events:
– Connection Recovered
– Connection Lost

You will be alerted if the Internet Connection drops at that site, and if the Domotz Collector is not monitoring your network anymore.

If you wish to add also more specific monitoring events, you may also add the following network events to the Shared Alert profile:

– Device Discovery (if you wish to be notified of new devices discovered on your network)
– Public IP Change (if you wish to be notified if the public WAN address changes)
– TCP Open Port and UPnP Port Forwarding (if you wish to be notified of open ports on the WAN side of the network, or if UPnP is enabled and which devices are trying to use it)

You may find more information about other specific Network Events which you can monitor, here: https://help.domotz.com/monitoring-management/shared-alerts-events-list-explained/#htoc-device-alerts-events

After creating the Shared event called ‘Collector and Network Monitoring’, you will apply it to all your Sites. This can be done through the Inventory dashboard > make sure you’re on the Sites page > check the box next to your Collector(s) > in the right sidebar edit Shared Alerts > apply the Network Events shared alert.
 
2 – Create a Shared Alert (which you can call ‘Device Monitoring‘), which monitors the selected devices in your network.

To do that, please select the following Device Events:
Device Goes Up
Device Goes Down
Configuration Change
Configuration Misalignment
Retrieve any SNMP Event
Retrieve any TCP Event
Retrieve any RTD Event

You may find more information about other specific Device Events here: https://help.domotz.com/monitoring-management/shared-alerts-events-list-explained/#htoc-device-alerts

Please note that it is not recommended to have both Network Events and Device Events in the same shared alert profile.
As explained above,  it is best to have a shared alert for the agent and network, and another for devices.

References:

Setting up your first Domotz Alert: monitor your Domotz Agent (and therefore your network)

Creating a Custom SNMP Alert – Create custom alerts for SNMP sensors

Shared Alert Events for Network Monitoring and Management

Monitoring Dashboards

Navigate to Monitoring Dashboards in the left sidebar. Here you can create dashboards and tables to monitor devices and sensors across all agents in one place. 

References:

Custom Monitoring Dashboards and Monitoring Tables

Documentation Tools and Custom Integrations

Navigate to Integrations in the left sidebar. Here you can connect and learn more about the documentation tools Domotz has integrations with and how to connect the systems. This is also where you can use our Custom Integrations feature. 

How to disable Important Device Classification

By default, Domotz will automatically classify devices as Important or not. You may not want newly discovered devices to be automatically classified, and you can disable this feature.

Visit Domotz Portal > Settings > Disable Automatic Important Device Classification. Domotz automatically classifies devices as important but may prefer to specify manually if devices should be tagged as important devices.

Only the Team Leader Role has access to this section

Move Agent from one Host to Another

Please visit the following page for more information: https://help.domotz.com/monitoring-management/move-domotz-to-new-hardware/