Introduction

Network Notepad CDP Neighbor Tool is an add-on auto-discovery utlility that works with products which support CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol). Right click an object in your diagram and select  "Discover Neighbors",  and it will use SNMP to gather information from the device's CDP table, what is connected to the object and the interface names it connects with. Click the paste button in Network Notepad to add the discovered objects to your diagram.

Installation

Install Network Notepad CDP Tool in to the same folder where you installed Network Notepad or Network Notepad Professional Edition.
The program adds a new function button to Network Notepad - "Discover Neighbors".
For Network Notepad Professional Edition it is necessary to define a function button yourself. Here is an example entry from the tooldefs.txt file:

Command(0,9)="C:\Program Files (x86)\Network Notepad Professional\NetpadCDP.exe" $ipaddress $field2
Display(0,9)=Discover Neighbors
AutoMin(0,9)=False

Download here.

Operation

In Network Notepad, right click an object that supports CDP and select "Discover Neighbors".
The CDP Tool window will appear:

IP Address: IP address of unit to perform discovery on. If you right-clicked an object in Network Notepad this will be filled in automatically. Communities: Specify a list of SNMP community strings to try. Enter multiple communities separated by commas eg. "public,private,abcdef". Sysname: Leave blank. If the SNMP community string is successful the program will fill this in. Ignore: The program will ignore any devices discovered which contain any of these words in the description. Strip domains: The names of devices are often retrieved with the domain name tagged on eg. myrouter.mycorp.com This option will return just the "myrouter" part. Save Communities: This option stores the SNMP communities in the registry. Retries: and Timeout: Specifies the number of retries and the timeout for SNMP requests.

The first time you run the program, enter the SNMP community strings and click the Discover button.
The program will then retrieve the CDP table from the unit.
When complete, click one of the four blue position buttons to select the layout of the objects discovered.
The CDP Tool window now closes.
In Network Notepad, click the paste button and paste the discovered objects.

Typefile.txt File

The typefile.txt file is located in the application folder and is used to translate the discovered device strings to objects in Network Notepad:

# This file is used to set the icon for discovered objects.
# Fields are:
# string to search for
# object type
# icon size x scale factor
# icon size y scale factor
#
default routerc1 0.5 0.5
ws- switch 0.75 0.75
server fileserver 0.5 0.5
air "Wireless Transport" 0.4 0.4

Caveats

CDP Tool doesn't currently recognise existing links which are already in the diagram.
CDP Tool doesn't currently recognise multiple links between two objects.