Why you SHOULD integrate LibreNMS into your network

Let me start by saying I will be the first person to tell you that LibreNMS is in no ways perfect. I will follow up by saying that LibreNMS has not only made me look like a networking pro, but has saved my butt multiple times. So for this article I'm going to be focusing on all the pros of LibreNMS and why personally I've found it invaluable in my Cisco dominate lab network.

Ease of Use

I've used several different NMS (network monitoring solutions). And I've got to give LibreNMS props to it's ease of use. It's fairly plug and play. You add a host using SNMP or ping, and viola you have historical data that you can then use to provide powerful insight to your network.

Integrations

Specifically for Cisco, LibreNMS has provided the exact features I would want through integrations. The two that I will be focusing on in this article are

Oxidized and
Syslog

With these integrations I have peace of mind since all my switches and even new switches are dynamically added to LibreNMS and then have Oxidized and Syslog running/reporting.

Oxidized

Taken straight from their GitLab repository it self describes as "a network device configuration backup tool. It's a RANCID replacement!" Basically I use it to automatically create revisions for any switches that are updated at any time by my lab team. Meaning that any changes made are extremely easy to view in the LibreNMS GUI as well as revert if needed or even replicate since I get cisco IOS commands that I can just copy and paste as needed. It also can be integrated to backup to Gitlab so you can have cloud backups as well if desired. This is a must have for lab environments that have many hands on your network devices.

Syslog

Through simply having a cisco config define a syslog server, or multiple and enabling syslog through LibreNMS you can have dynamic syslog reporting for any events/or specific events on a cisco switch. I use this feature to get webex notifications of various syslog messages that allows us to keep a tight watch on how are switches are performing, if something was changed that shouldn't have, if we have a bad config on a switch, if we have had something unplugged, or that shutdown on us, if something new has been added, if a switch goes offline, if we have flapping, etc. With syslog you can basically alert on anything. Combine this with LibreNMS alerts like ping and you have pretty great visibility and alerting on your network infrastructure as well as historical data that can be used for troubleshooting, reporting, etc.