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OSPF network visualizer: ospfviz

OSPFviz is a visualization software that displays OSPF router information on dynamically routed networks and draws a network map as image. This can be very helpful when searching for asymmetrical routes, when designing load balancing or just for documentational purpose. Works on SNMP capable devices that implement the OSPF-MIB.


Announcements for version 0.7

Version 0.7 will be completely webbased. All tasks such as configuration, discovery, debugging will be done from a web page. The command line will still be available. The following features will be included: OSPFviz version 0.7 will be released in 2008.

Download

OSPFviz is available for free if you help me improving this tool. Please send feedback (version of ospfviz, debug output) and the topology xml file (if your network security policy allows this) vi email to ospfviz *at* goldeneye *dot* mine *dot* nu

Prerequisits

The workstation on which OSPFviz runs must be able to reach every OSPF router in your network. OSPFviz addresses the OSPF routers via its RouterId only. That is, if a ping works this should be fine.
OSPFviz is written in Perl and should run on every system architecture that provides Perl5 and the following modules:


Supported routers

OSPFviz works on any device that implement the OSPF-MIB, IP-MIB, SNMPv2-MIB and IF-MIB, e.g. See page router for more details.

How does it work

OSPFviz uses the SNMP protocol to get routing information from network devices. Only the read-community string must be provided.
OSPFviz does not interact with the routed network in any form: it neither sends nor receives OSPF hello messages or link state advertisements.
OSPFviz is run from the command line

$ ./ospfviz -s <start> -f <format>

where <start> is the IP address of a router to start with and <format> the visualization format. It will find its way through the topology by using the OSPF neighbor information from the devices.
As soon as OSPFviz has discovered the entire topology it starts the visualization process based on the chosen format. The resulting graph image of the network contains devices as nodes and the links as edges. Examples are shown in the section screenshots.
This image is a complete view, because OSPFviz sees the entire network while a single router (even area 0 devices) has only a view of its connected areas.
In addition a web site is created which contain all discovered information such as OspfRouterId, interfaces, metrics etc. sorted by the RouterId.

Warranty

OSPFviz comes with no warranty in any form. It can not garantee if the OSPFviz graph image is identical to the actual topology in your network. When you absolutely need correct OSPF information, use information obtained directly from the device or from your trusted network management tool.