MX64 & MX65: no way to tell what's connected to LAN ports

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ValleyITPC
Getting noticed

MX64 & MX65: no way to tell what's connected to LAN ports

Hi all.  I'm starting my own thread on this because the existing one I found was filled with information about ASA's and MS switches.  

 

An MX65 I manage shows an active Mitel IP phone attached to a wired LAN port.  It is getting it's IP address via DHCP (from the MX65).  

 

Nowhere in the dashboard can I find a place to view which port this phone is attached to, but from the graphical ports view for the MX I see only 3 ports lit, one being the MR33, the other two have one running at 1Gbps, the other at 100Mbps.  The customer swears there is no IP phone on their network, and since they have only one computer, one printer, and just a few items like an iPhone, an Apple TV and what not, it seems likely they're correct.  I'm wondering if this is some sub-module of a bigger product, like maybe a internal chip in a security camera system or something else.  

 

The MAC of the device definitely shows as Mitel though.  And a live 60-second packet capture shows it is connecting to an outside IP nearby, so it's a real device, with a real connection.  

 

So my question is simply:  what's up with the MX not showing port attachment info?  That other thread I mentioned started in 2018, so clearly people are vocal about this missing feature.  

 

And you'd have to be kind of a monkey, as a product designer, to conclude this is not a feature basically every network admin on earth wants (if said product designers were aware people want it).  No fault to Meraki if the feature didn't exist yet and they hadn't' thought of it.  But if it did, and they took it away, then yes full fault to Meraki on that.  

 

I'm sure it's about product positioning, put the feature in the MS units but deny it to the basic MX, to help encourage buying MS switches.  No problem, that's how the game goes.  But again if this feature existed before and was taken away, that's very irritating.  

 

So from my perspective, the current lack of said feature is something they should be implementing on the MX.  It's like having an an MR unit and not allowing admins to see which WiFi channel a client is connected to.  It's seen as kind of dumb not to include that. 

 

I would utilize the Make A Wish feature in the dashboard, but to be honest, if they can't figure out that every network admin needed this feature, then I think that decision had already been made and there's no point in asking for it.  

 

Please let me be wrong and it's just that I missed this somewhere but I went through the dashboard twice in search of it.  

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
ww
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

https://community.meraki.com/t5/Security-SD-WAN/MX-Port-menu-is-displaying-CDP-info/m-p/63436#M16109

 

It was here  for a few days. But not showing  correct port  info. It was gone very  soon.

 

Hope  they still working on this.

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4 REPLIES 4
ww
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

https://community.meraki.com/t5/Security-SD-WAN/MX-Port-menu-is-displaying-CDP-info/m-p/63436#M16109

 

It was here  for a few days. But not showing  correct port  info. It was gone very  soon.

 

Hope  they still working on this.

Nash
Kind of a big deal

You can access that info from the API using the Get Network Device Lldp CDP endpoint.

 

Using the Postman library, do: Get Organizations -> Get Organization Networks -> Set a variable with your device's SN off the dashboard -> Get Network Device Lldp CDP.

 

Convenient? No. But available, I guess.

haha! Ok you have me there, I don't use the API stuff as yet. Further training pending this year on Meraki but for now it's just GUI-time for me.
But ok I feel foolish for such a long rant if they're already addressing this. I know CDP and I think LLDP had some security flaws recently found so maybe that's related or something.

I have noticed lastely that a lot of device names have gone super-crazy, like long alphanumeric strings where there used to be simple NetBIOS names like "MyLaptop" and such. Now it's 20-25 character hyphenated strings, but only sometimes.

Looks like I can only mark one post as solution but thank you Nash for the info!
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