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Josephny
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Help with Dude

Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:59 pm

I'm hoping to get some advice on how to make a useful network diagram using The Dude.

I've created the following so far. Each column is a different location (all connected via VPN).

It would be great to see much more detail about each item and the connections between them.

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Amm0
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Re: Help with Dude

Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:23 pm

Use the + button to add a static item or network. With network, it actually doesn't matter what you use as the range, so could be 0.0.0.0/0 – it just used for display. Then you can use the + to add a link, and draw them between those devices and network. It will let you pick what interface you want it tracking.

I think the trick is the "link" needs two ends to be usable & and without the link... it's not tracking traffic, which is likely what you want. The links are one-to-one, but you can create multiple network/static objects if you have more than one interface. Those can have labels like WAN etc. to clarify what where the links go.
 
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Re: Help with Dude

Tue Mar 21, 2023 6:46 pm

Big improvement already -- thank you!

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Amm0
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Re: Help with Dude

Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:51 pm

A few more tips:

- If you enable SNMP on the individual routers, by default it will show CPU/memory for the devices on the map & in general Dude likes to operate with SNMP not RouterOS commands.

- If you want to monitor devices on each of those routers, it's often helpful to create a NEW network map on a per-subnet & if desired you can enable discovery of new device on that map, for that particular subnet – this avoid a mega-map with too many item. You can further use a "submap" via the same "+" so you click through to another map, or have a "meta map" that has submap links to all the other maps to get overview of status.

- Beyond the link, more advanced monitoring is possible the "probes" – that more complex, plenty of examples here: viewtopic.php?t=12402 – since they haven't changed much in 10+ years, likely most still work if you have other device types to monitor BUT complex...

- If you want to customize the device labels to show your own things... See my post about LTE tracking here: viewtopic.php?t=192103&hilit=dude+lte

- It is also a syslog server, so you can always use it as remote log destination – they don't have a lot of tools to mange them, but possible – e.g. helpful for error/warn from things, but NOT for sending MBs/GBs of logs and excepting it to be useful to search/manage/etc.


Two big gotcha however...

- once you add a device to a map it's stuck there forever – you have to recreate the device on a new map if you want to "move it". This loses all the tracked data – so critical to design your maps right FIRST and get it right. Adapting later results in lost of historical data, and you can't even cut-and-paste the devices, so you're re-creating them.

- Also no CLI to manage the devices means you either add them by hand, or relay on the "discovery" feature of a map to add devices – so limits the usefulness in some larger installs.
 
Josephny
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Re: Help with Dude

Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:05 pm

Thank you so very much.

While I'm studying what you wrote, I noticed an annoyance:

Every so often (possibly associated with a scheduled re-scan/rediscovery), the elements on my map get rearranged to just about sit on top of each other (all squooshed together).

Anything I can do to prevent this?
 
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Amm0
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Re: Help with Dude

Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:14 pm

I noticed an annoyance:
Every so often (possibly associated with a scheduled re-scan/rediscovery), the elements on my map get rearranged to just about sit on top of each other (all squooshed together).
Anything I can do to prevent this?
Not a great one. But do the discovery once is what I do – long enough to populate them but since they typically have to get configured and really don't want everything monitored anyway. But I can't say if there is actually some option to organize them. It may re-map them if it finds a new device, but really dunno.
 
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Re: Help with Dude

Wed Mar 22, 2023 12:54 pm

So Dude discovered a whole bunch of links and added them to the map (which is great).

But, now I don't understand exactly what these links mean.

I created a Network items called "Wireguard" with 10.10.100.x and 192.168.x.x and put it in the center.

I combined the duplicated MT routers that have an address in each of those subnets into a single device.

I created links with throughput on the wireguard interfaces. And links between the MT routers and other other infrastructure devices at each location (switches, AP, Unify UDM routers).

I then created Network items for each local subnet (192.168.0.x, 192.168.1.x, etc.) and a link from each of those to the local devices.

Then Dude added more links.

Any suggestions on making this more consistent and useful?


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Josephny
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Re: Help with Dude

Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:32 am

Thought I'd share the latest version - yes, I'm finding this super cool.

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Amm0
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Re: Help with Dude

Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:57 am

Very cool. Yeah once you get a hang of the model, it works. Used this for a while, and Dude is limiting in someway... but it's why I have time to comment on the forum ;)

You can customize the "device types" with better icons & the device types can be "templates" with the probes etc so you don't have to set them per-device.

So you upgrade the graphics for the icons too. Mikrotik uses SVG in the Dude, which is nowaday a pretty common format. So not hard to find better icons (or disable them to give you more room). And if you export any graph as SVG that will generally work in email, web, etc.

My only real complaint is the lack of any ability to "move a device". That what screws you once you create a nice map, but something changes and need to split them up.

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