Your Guide to a

Successful Auvik Deployment

09-202103
A FEW WORDS ABOUT GETTING YOUR AUVIK
ACCOUNT STARTED

If you’ve already set up your Auvik account, skip to page 3 to get started with deployment.

To get started with an Auvik account, you first need to sign up for one. Use the link given
to you by your Auvik account manager and follow the instructions on screen.

(If you don’t have the link, send an email to sales@auvik.com and we’ll send you one.)

As you fill out the form, you should see green check marks beside each field. If you don’t,
you may need to enable JavaScript or try a different browser.

After you sign up for your account, you’ll be required to set up two-factor authentication
when you next log in. Auvik uses a time-based one-time password protocol (TOTP). For more
information on getting two-factor authentication set up, see the Auvik Knowledge Base.

The first 14 days with your Auvik account are

unlimited. You can deploy to as many sites as
you’d like and monitor as many devices as you
like. Before the free period ends, you can work
with your Auvik account manager to set up a
subscription and continue using your account.

Not ready to talk to an Auvik human yet?

Don’t worry, you can also click the View Plans
button on your Auvik dashboard to see
available plan options and get your
subscription started.

The rest of this guide focuses on deploying

your first network and helping you get up to
speed as quickly as possible.

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GETTING STARTED

Before we dive in, let’s lay out some terminology and walk you through a couple of steps to
help you get familiar with Auvik.

Global view The central area for managing your Auvik account. After you sign up,
you’ll automatically be logged directly into your global view.

Site The location of the network you’re managing.

Site-level The area for monitoring and managing the network for a specific
dashboard 
site. It’s set up this way to make it easy for you to add and manage
multiple sites.

Multi-site A special kind of site for advanced deployments.

Collector  lightweight application that uses a number of protocols to

A
gather information about a network, such as topology
details, configurations, and network statistics. The collector
summarizes and sends that information to the Auvik servers
over an encrypted connection.

NOW WE’RE GOING TO:

• Add your first site to Auvik (p. 4)

• Launch the collector setup (p. 5)

• Install Auvik (p. 6)

• Work through some tips for smooth discovery (p. 13)

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ADD YOUR FIRST AUVIK SITE
For your first Auvik site, you’ll see the First Site Setup wizard.

• Enter a site name that corresponds with one location that you’ll deploy Auvik to.

• Pick a site URL prefix with at least four characters. Only letters and numbers are
allowed—no special characters.

• Click Add Site.

If this isn’t your first Auvik site, then follow these steps from your global view:

• Click Add Site (blue button on the All Sites page) to create a site.

• Pick a domain prefix (URL) that has at least four characters. Only letters and numbers
are allowed—no special characters.

• Select Site as the type. Don’t select Multi-site for your first installation. This is an
advanced option you can revisit later.

• Click Next. Here’s where you choose which Auvik users should have access to this site.
Beside each user name, you'll also see the level of permission a user has. To change
a user’s permission level, select that person then use the Roles drop-down menu to
pick a new level.

• Click Save. Your site has now been created.

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LAUNCH THE COLLECTOR SETUP WIZARD

Once you’ve added a new site, Auvik will automatically redirect you to the deployment wizard,
as you’re now ready to install your first collector.

You’ll see a few options for downloading your Auvik collector but we highly recommend
using the Windows service as your primary installer method, as it’s the fastest and
easiest way to get Auvik running.

If you can’t or don’t want to use the Windows service to deploy Auvik, you have other
deployment options to choose from, as outlined on page 8.

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DEPLOY AUVIK USING THE WINDOWS SERVICE
(recommended)

WHAT IS IT?

The Windows installer is a three-step application that installs Auvik’s Windows service.
It can run on any server or workstation with network connectivity. It’s the easiest Auvik
deployment method.

TIPS!
DEPLOYMENT PROCESS • Don’t install on an overloaded machine.
• The Windows service uses ports 21, 69, 514, and
Click Install Windows service on 2055, among others. It’s best to install the service
the deployment wizard screen to see on a device that isn’t running another program that
relies on these ports. The Auvik installer will warn
the detailed instructions for installing you if a potential conflict is detected.
Auvik with the Windows service.

Here’s how to install the Auvik collector:

1. Click Download Windows

Installer to download the
AuvikInstaller.exe file.

2. Click Save File to finish

the installer download.

3. Open your downloads

folder from your browser,
or navigate to your
downloads folder. This is
usually something like C:\Users\<username>\Downloads.

4. Double-click on the Auvik installer file.

5. You may see a prompt asking to allow the Auvik installer to make changes to the
device. Click Yes.

6. Depending on your Windows Defender Firewall settings (or your third-party Windows
firewall), you may see a prompt requesting to allow the Auvik installer access to private
and public networks. Select both, and click Allow access.

7. Enter your email address—the same one you used to sign up for your Auvik account.

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 8. Enter the API key that’s displayed on
the collector setup wizard by clicking
the Copy icon in the collector setup
wizard and pasting the key into the
Auvik installer.

9. Enter the site URL prefix you selected

in the first site setup wizard. You can
validate this site prefix by reviewing
the URL.

https://<siteURLPrefix>.us1.my.auvik.com/

10. Click Authenticate.

11. Click Confirm to use the default installation folder of C:\Auvik. Alternatively, you can
select a different folder through the drop-down, then click Confirm.

That’s it! Now go back to the dashboard for this site in Auvik. Once the collector is connected,
you’ll be automatically redirected to your Auvik site-level dashboard.

You can quickly confirm the collector is properly connected and approved by
navigating to Auvik Collectors on the side navigation bar. There you’ll find the
collector’s unique ID and IP address. You should see Connected and Approved
in green.

If you get stuck, click the Support icon in the bottom right of your screen. Our team will be
happy to help you get the collector installed.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Windows installer: Installing the Windows collector using the Windows installer

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DEPLOY AUVIK USING AN ADVANCED
DEPLOYMENT METHOD
Since this is a quick start guide, we’ll give you some references for the advanced deployments,
but won’t walk through all the steps.

WINDOWS COMMAND LINE INSTALLER

The Windows command line installer is a simple Windows service that enables you to install
the collector from the command line, rather than the Auvik installer.

Detailed instructions: How to install the Auvik collector using the Windows command line

OVA INSTALLER

The OVA installer is an OVA file you download and install on a VMWare ESX / ESXi host.
Download the OVA, import into vCenter, and you’re good to go.

Detailed instructions: How to install the Auvik collector using the OVA file

BASH INSTALLER

The bash installer is a script that installs Auvik on top of a stripped-down Ubuntu server.
The server can be a physical or virtual server, but note that Auvik requires an x86-based
processor. Sorry, no ARM-based devices like Raspberry Pi.

This deployment method does take a bit longer—you should plan for 30 to 60 minutes.
And make sure you use the exact Ubuntu server revision mentioned in the instructions.

Detailed instructions: How to install the Auvik collector from a bash script

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SHARED COLLECTOR

A shared collector is an Auvik collector installed in a central location (such as your data center)
and shared with various sites. It’s recommended for managing multiple small networks where
you have Layer 3 connectivity to the site, for example, through a VPN.

You can also use a shared collector to get optimal performance when managing a large site
(more than 1,000 users). It’s best to segment based on physical or logical attributes, like separate
buildings at your campus or parts of the network that don’t share physical network infrastructure.

Detailed instructions: How do I manage my shared collector?

POWER POINT!
Consider using a shared collector deployed on portable
hardware. This gives you an “on demand” probe
you can bring with you to different sites, speeding
up initial discovery.

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AUVIK DISCOVERY BEGINS
Auvik begins scanning on the subnet where the collector is installed, so those are the devices
it will find first. On average, it takes
about 15 minutes to fully discover a POWER POINT!
network but it does depend on the With such quick turnaround, you can start network
discovery at the beginning of a network assessment and
size of the network.
have some actionable data within 30 minutes.

While discovery is happening,

consider doing these two things:

1. Adding more users

You may want to add more users to Auvik and give them access to your dashboard.

• In the side navigation bar, click Manage Users. Invite any new users and set permission
levels for their access to your Auvik dashboard.

See How do I manage invitations for new users? in the Auvik Knowledge Base for details.

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 2. Add network device credentials

If you have SNMP credentials, login credentials, or VMware credentials for devices on your
network, you may want to add those in now.

• In the side navigation bar,

click Manage Credentials, TIP!
If you don’t see any devices after 5 to 10 minutes, check
then SNMP Credentials under Discovery > Manage Networks to see the network
or Login Credentials. we automatically started scanning.

• Do you see a /16 or a /8 network? Consider

• Click Add SNMP scanning a couple of /24 networks instead as it
will speed up discovery.
Credentials, or Add Login
• Don’t see any network listed at all? Click Add Network
Credentials to continue to manually add a subnet.

adding them.

In the end, we want a network diagram of predominantly blue wires (showing Layer 1 to 3
connectivity) rather than a diagram of all black wires (showing Layer 3 only).

POWER POINT!
Troubleshooting becomes simple when your entire
technical team has instant visibility into how a network
is configured and connected.

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THIS IS WHAT A GOOD AUVIK MAP LOOKS LIKE

Notice all the blue wires. The firewall sits between the internet and the rest of the network.
The devices are properly identified and labelled.

THIS IS WHAT A MAP WITH PROBLEMS LOOKS LIKE

Quite a difference! The wires are black. Most devices

are represented by a generic grey lightning bolt, which
means they haven’t been identified.

A map like this means Auvik needs more information

from you. Read through the deployment tips below for
guidance.

LOOK FOR DISCOVERY TIPS

As discovery progresses you’ll see blue banners across the top of the page. These are
discovery tips. Follow the prompts to add credentials, add networks to scan, and so on.
This keeps the iterative discovery process moving.

TIP!
If you share credentials across multiple sites, entering
these credentials at the global level, instead of the site
level, can save you a lot of time.

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TIPS FOR A SMOOTH AUVIK DISCOVERY
While Auvik is discovering your site’s network, you’ll want to start from the outside in. Start with
the firewall, then switch infrastructure, followed by the access points, and finally endpoints,
such as servers. As you’re configuring devices, here are a few things to check on or complete to
ensure the resulting network map is as accurate as possible.

□ MAKE SURE SNMP IS ENABLED.

Auvik uses SNMP to collect performance statistics and get make and model information so we
know what commands to send to the device. Enabling SNMP is also required for automated
configuration backups.

Auvik supports SNMP v2c and v3. SNMPv3 is a slightly newer and more secure protocol, but is
a little more complex to set up. If you’re not familiar with SNMP, we recommend you start with
SNMPv2c.

You should always enable SNMP on all network devices before adding login credentials
for those devices.

If your initial scan shows a lot of black wires or gray “generic” devices, chances are you need to
add SNMP credentials into Auvik or enable SNMP on one or more devices. If you aren’t sure
which devices need SNMP credentials added, Auvik lets you know during discovery by creating
a new message in the blue banner across the top of the screen.

If you need to enable SNMP on network devices, log into the device’s GUI interface, navigate
to the SNMP section, and configure the relevant settings. Alternatively, if the device only has
a terminal interface, log in and run the vendor-specific commands to turn it on.

If you aren’t sure how to enable SNMP on a particular device, check Auvik’s Knowledge Base.
We have a large and growing number of articles on how to enable SNMP for various vendors
and devices: Device setup and configuration

Not all vendors provide all management information over SNMP. Some vendors use APIs and
non-standard protocols to access device data. Check the Knowledge Base for your specific
vendor to see if there are additional steps to complete.

□ ENABLE SNMP ON WIRELESS CONTROLLERS AND STANDALONE APs

To pick up wireless connections to access points (APs), make sure wireless controllers or
standalone APs have SNMP enabled. Wireless connections are drawn as blue dashed lines
between APs and devices.

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□ ENABLE NETFLOW OR sFLOW

Auvik TrafficInsights uses flow data to provide an overview of network traffic, and lets you
see who’s on the network, what they’re doing, and where their traffic is going. TrafficInsights
currently supports NetFlow v5 and v9, IPFIX, J-Flow, and sFlow.

You’ll need to configure your network devices to send flow data to the Auvik collector. To find
your collector’s IP address, click Auvik Collectors from the side navigation bar. If you aren’t sure
how to enable flow data on a particular device, see Device configuration for Auvik TrafficInsights
in Auvik’s Knowledge Base.

□ ENABLE SYSLOG

Auvik’s syslog feature gives you more network context and allows you to get to the root cause
of an issue faster by providing centralized access to device logs.

You’ll need to configure your network devices to send syslog to the Auvik collector. To find
your collector’s IP address, click Auvik Collectors from the side navigation bar. If you aren’t sure
how to enable syslog on a particular device, see Device configuration for Auvik syslog in Auvik’s
Knowledge Base.

□ MANAGE SNMP CREDENTIALS

Auvik automatically tries the default community strings of “public” and “private” on all devices
for which it recognizes active SNMP. If the string is different, have it ready to input. Or, if you’re
using SNMPv3, have the username, auth protocol, and passphrase credentials ready.

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 After Auvik’s initial scan, you can go to Discovery > Credentials > SNMP Credentials
to see how many devices have successful SNMP credentials, how many devices are missing
credentials, and how many devices are currently trying credentials. Click on any of the numbers
for a list of the devices in that category.

You can add additional SNMP credentials by clicking on the Add SNMP Credentials button.
We recommend leaving the Devices field blank so that Auvik tries that SNMP community string
on any device that has SNMP enabled.

□ MANAGE LOGIN CREDENTIALS

Login credentials are important for features such as the terminal and configuration backup
and restore. Login credentials also pull route, ARP, and FDB data from switches, which can help
with accurate discovery. While Auvik will use either SSH or Telnet, we do prefer SSH and will
use that whenever possible. Only enable Telnet on older devices where SSH is not available.

There are four things that need to be

POWER POINT!
in place before login credentials can
Automatic configuration backups increase team efficiency
be authenticated. by reducing the amount of time your team spends on
repetitive monthly device backups.
1. The credentials for the user
you add must have full
access, rather than read-only access, on the account. (You should be able to execute
commands such as “show running-config.” You can test this by going into the terminal
and trying a few show commands.) You’ll also need to add the device’s CLI elevated
“enable” credentials for Auvik to be able to run the necessary commands.

2. SNMP must be enabled on the device, and the device must be properly classified in
Auvik. If it’s not properly classified, you can change the Type field manually by editing
device details through the Manage Devices menu.

3. Telnet or SSH must also be TIP!

enabled on the device. Auvik will attempt SSH on standard port 22 and Telnet
on standard port 23. If you’re using non-standard ports
(like a WatchGuard device that uses port 4118 for SSH),
then you need to make some small tweaks.
Details here: How do I manage discovery services?

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 4. Auvik needs to be able to detect the service. The service status will show as a grey line
instead of circle with a line through it if the device is ready.

If the above four things are true, Auvik attempts to authenticate.

□ MANAGE VMWARE CREDENTIALS

Have SNMP enabled on your VMware hypervisors? Great—you’re likely already being
prompted for VMware credentials.

The credentials you add should

POWER POINT!
be the VMware credentials for the Beyond performance stats, Auvik also pulls in hardware
hypervisor host itself, not for a guest details from VMware hosts, giving you visibility into failed
hard drives, power supplies, and fans.
or the vCenter server. Once your
credentials are properly entered,
Auvik should show the hypervisor at the top and all hosts organized underneath it.

If you don’t have SNMP enabled on your VMware hosts, it’s easy to manually classify the host
as a hypervisor. Search for the ESXi host IP address in Inventory > All Devices. Select
the device name to open the device dashboard. Click Edit next to the device name and change
the type field to Hypervisor.

TIP!
If you have Hyper-V, we talk to those hosts using WMI.
Follow the instructions below for adding WMI credentials.
Don’t add Hyper-V credentials in the VMware credentials
section of Auvik—they won’t work there.

□ MANAGE WMI CREDENTIALS

Servers often have WMI turned on by default, but not workstations. If you’d like to monitor all
Windows endpoints, you’ll want to turn on WMI through a group policy. Here’s how to do it:
How to enable WinRM with domain controller Group Policy for WMI monitoring

If you want WMI on just a few devices, follow these directions for enabling WMI on a single
device: How to enable WMI monitoring on a single Windows device

Once you have WMI enabled, go to Discovery > Credentials > WMI Credentials to
add a domain administrator or similar credential that has access to those servers.

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□ MANAGE API CLOUD CONTROLLERS

Have devices that are managed via a cloud controller such as Meraki or Datto? You’ll want
to ensure that Auvik can talk to your cloud controller. Go to Discovery > Manage
Credentials > API Credentials to set up the integration. Detailed instructions here:
How do I edit API credentials?

□ MANAGE NETWORKS

If there are multiple subnets at this site, Auvik has likely already found them. You can see
the networks Auvik found under Discovery > Manage Networks. You’ll see some of the
networks are awaiting approval.

Auvik can scan networks of nearly

POWER POINT!
any size, but we recommend sticking
Auvik automatically pulls networks from managed network
to smaller subnet ranges. If you see devices, and may find subnets you didn't know existed.

networks that are /16 or larger, we

recommend breaking the network
into smaller /24 ranges to scan—provided that only a portion of the subnet is in use. If you
must scan a larger subnet, keep in mind that discovery will take a bit longer, and may result in
a map that’s a bit overwhelming.

Technically, you can scan public networks, but we don’t recommend it—so if that’s what you
want to do, you’ll need to actively opt in by adding the network manually. Keep in mind that
Auvik defines a public subnet as anything not in an RFC 1918 address name, so any internal
network that uses a non-RFC 1918 range will have to be manually added as well.

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 If a network you want to scan is missing from the list, you can add it using the Add Network
button. Remember to add the subnet mask in its CIDR format. Auvik then begins its scan.

□ USE THE DEVICE TROUBLESHOOTING PAGES

If credentials don’t authorize properly, you can diagnose the issue using the device dashboard.
The troubleshooting screens under Discovery > Troubleshooting on the device
dashboard walk you through the steps to authorize devices.

For more details on how to use the troubleshooting pages for each discovery service that
requires credential authentication, please see:

• Troubleshoot SNMP credentials

• Troubleshoot login credentials

• Troubleshoot WMI credentials

• Troubleshoot VMware credentials

□ WHITELIST AUVIK’S IP ADDRESS ON YOUR FIREWALL OR PROXY

Has discovery not started yet? Are you not seeing anything on your Auvik dashboard?
There could be a proxy blocking traffic. Revisit the collector install steps to configure Auvik
to work with a proxy.

Users that have a proxy with SSL inspection will absolutely need to whitelist Auvik.
If you’re unsure whether you have a proxy or how to whitelist on a proxy, please
contact support@auvik.com.

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□ CHECK THE INTERNET CONNECTIONS DASHBOARD

Auvik discovers your internet

connections automatically but if our
discovery isn’t yet complete, you can
configure them manually. From the
home dashboard, look at the Internet
Connections widget to make sure
the interfaces listed are in fact
associated with your internet-facing
WAN connections.

If not, you can edit a connection,

delete one entirely, or add a new
internet connection through the Add
Connection link within the widget.

From Inventory > Services >

Internet Connection Check,
also make sure the public IP address for the endpoint is correct and that when you click on the
IP, the Packet Loss and Round Trip Time widgets are successfully polling data.

POWER POINT!
You'll always be the first to know the internet is down
at a site. Auvik also helps you narrow down whether
performance issues are ISP-related or internal.

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□ TROUBLESHOOT MISSING DEVICES AND NETWORKS

If there’s a network missing from your map, it may be because that network is connected over
a VPN or MPLS. See the point above on managing networks to get those networks added.

If you’re missing a device, try to ping it from the Auvik console. If that doesn’t work, use the
Nmap command. If both results are negative, the device may be in stealth mode and blocking
port scans. Make sure Auvik can use port scanning on that device.

Other known issues can be found in the Auvik Knowledge Base: Known issues

□ TROUBLESHOOT MAPS WITH LOTS OF BLACK WIRES

We mentioned earlier that we want to see blue wires showing physical connections. Your map
may already show lots of blue wires and very few black wires. If so, that’s great. But what if
you’re still seeing a lot of black wires?

You probably need to enable SNMP POWER POINT!

These three action items can be used for onboarding
on some of your network devices. new networks. You definitely want to know what kind of
Here’s how to find devices that might network gear you're going to be expected to manage.

need SNMP enabled.

1. There are some special IP addresses that are often used for network devices. Check
under Discovery > Manage Devices. Do you see any IP addresses ending in
.1 or .254? These may be a firewall or router. Other IPs like .250 - .252 and .2 - .5
may be used as well.

2. Auvik can often discover the make of a device before we fully manage it. Under the
Discovery > Manage Devices, you’ll see make and model information. You can
search for known network vendors like Cisco, Netgear, and Ubiquiti. You should see a
green check mark beside all the network devices. If not, there’s more credential-adding
work to do.

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 Alternatively, you can search the map for common vendors, such as Cisco. If a device
from a known vendor is showing up on the map as a generic device, it might be a
network element without SNMP enabled. Enable it.

3. If you’re not sure which devices are network gear, try using Auvik’s remote browser
feature to see the web interface on a device. This often provides visual cues.
Instructions here: How do I launch a remote browser connection?

Auvik also leverages discovery protocols like CDP and LLDP to discover physical
connections. Review your switches and routers to confirm if they support CDP or
LLDP and enable it if they do.

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STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?
We’re here for you!

During your free 14 days: Your Auvik account manager is your primary point of contact.
You can email that person directly or send a note to sales@auvik.com to reach the entire
sales team.

As a subscriber: Your Auvik success manager is your primary point of contact. You can email
that person directly or send a note to success@auvik.com to reach the entire success team.

And, the Auvik support team is always available to help with all things technical. You can reach
them in many ways:

• Use the chat box in the bottom right corner of the Auvik window.

• Click Knowledge Base in the bottom left corner of the toolbar in your Auvik window.
The Auvik Knowledge Base has a ton of articles to help with common issues.

• Email support@auvik.com to create a ticket.

• Call Auvik toll-free and hit 2 at the main prompt to connect to the support team.

• 1-866-59-AUVIK (28845) in North America

• +44 800 368 7578 in the UK
• 1 800 934 221 in Australia

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