Seeds

Configure seeds to specify the locations from which to begin discovering devices. Discovery seeds can be IP addresses, or subnet addresses.

You can specify seeds in several ways:

  • Using the Ping finder: You specify the IP addresses or subnet addresses to discover first.
  • Using the File finder: You provide one or more files that each contain a list of IP addresses or subnet addresses.
  • Using the Database finder: You specify connection details for an internal or external database that contains details of devices to discover. You also specify an SQL query to run to retrieve the device details from the database. An advantage of using the Database finder over the File finder is that you can extract device data directly from a third-party database, without having to extract the device data as a flat file.
    Note: The Database finder method is only configurable from the command line
  • Using the Collector finder: You specify one or more ports used to access independent collector processes.
Tip: To restrict discovery to a list of specific devices, seed the discovery with a list of devices using the File finder or the Ping finder, and disable feedback in the Advanced tab of the Network Discovery Configuration GUI.