[bugs][feature request] A few bugs and feature requests for phpIPAM

[Genluck]

Hello to everyone who is supporting and developing phpIPAM.

I’m very glad for this project active developing. And I’m hoping there is a big future for this project.

I’m very bad with PHP scripting so there wouldn’t be much help from me with code commits, so I could help only with testing, reporting bugs that I have found and providing information about features that would be good to see at this project.

About bugs that has been found so far:

• It is not possible to put number for Threshold manually at the network settings. You could change number only by moving slider at the left side of the number but not a number itself. And it could take a lot of time to place slide at the specified number:
• There is no button for finding nested networks at the “folder” network (I mean a green one where is possible to find network only as part of the current one). So, it is not possible to scan only specified network for networks inside it. Without it new networks need add manually or add from result of full route table list (after SNMP scan).
• Scan for MAC addresses (and ports) works only if there are new hosts has been found at the ARP table. It is better to turn off (or add a checkbox for it) because MAC addresses (and port number) of current hosts could be easily changed at end devices (laptop user who could move withing site, different IP for PCs from DHCP each time, etc.).
• phpIPAM could scan for port number at the switch for host. But this information could be seen only at the moment of scanning. There are no fields at the network summary page or at the host info about port number of the host.

Features that would be good to see:

• Discovering and scanning of hosts (by file for a cron) by ping + ARP. And for scanning add possibility to check and update MAC address and switches ports of hosts.
• Add checkbox for SNMP scan (any type of SNMP scan, but not as global configuration) for devices only within location of current network. And if current network don’t have a linked location add a dropout menu (it is better to add it even if network has a location) for a list of locations. If, for example there would be 400 switches and 200 routers the scan could take a lot of time and RAM (because of arrays from each device).
• Add grouping for locations, racks and devices, because if there are a lot of components there it becomes a big chaos at those pages.
• Add export of information. But not export as backup, but export as report. For example if I would like to export all networks of the specified vlan, location or network folder I could do only global a export and I should edit result file a lot.
• Add user groups from Active Directory (if it is ever possible to check if user is inside of a specific AD group without losing a site work speed).
• Checkbox at the global menu for checking domain names only at hosts scanning run.
• Add limit time for storing logs at the database (currently it is possible to be deleted only by administrator and directly from database).

[zombah]

You can export with rest api in any output format you wish.

[Genluck]

Hello, zombah. Thank you very much for you comment regarding API. Yes, I could do so and I could write a script for exporting in whatever way I need it but it wouldn't be a part of phpIPAM interfaces. And if it is not a part of the interfaces:

• the user access rights for exporting wouldn't be working in right way (any user could export any data. Group rights wouldn't be working).
• users of the interface should be using another web page (they should store it at favorites or we should add it at the info page)
• by writing the script it should also has access to database for providing a list of locations, vlans, vrfs, etc. This data could be provided by API but there would be a lot of requests to it. So using direct data at the database would be more quicker and would use less system resources.

So native support of exporting inside of phpIPAM interface would be much better.

[zombah]

Hello @Genluck, I use api alot and didn't noticed any system resources impact. I don't quite understand what you mean with "native support of exporting" imo api is the most native export method, but there is also some import/export in admin section, maybe export into csv is native one.

[Genluck]

Hello, zombah. Thank you very much for your comment and sorry for a long response.

what you mean with "native support of exporting"

I did mean it in a way of native support from a web interface. You as a programmer (and I as system administrator) could easily create request to API or create a little script to get what we need. But managers couldn't do it. So they should ask responsible team to export necessary info for them. Yes, we could create scripts for exporting info that we need. But those scripts couldn't be integrated to phpIPAM interface (we should add them to web servers and add links to info pages). Also those scripts wouldn't be using access rights of phpIPAM groups, so managers could export any data even if they don't has access to it inside phpIPAM.

I use api alot and didn't noticed any system resources impact.

If there is only phpIPAM on the server then it would be hard to see any impact of the service on server. In case when it works on the server with another services on it it could be noticed. But in fact it's a double work for the server resources: first phpIPAM should calculate data for API request and after this the script itself should do an additional calculations. If export would be a part of phpIPAM then calculation should be done only by phpIPAM without preparing JSON data as additional step.

But, yes, I could agree about small impact for resources. But this is the last point in pluses. The support of function from phpIPAM interfaces and groups limitations is a primary reasons for having it in phpIPAM.

import/export in admin section, maybe export into csv is native one

Yes, there do exist this method. But it is exporting all networks (for example I could ask in exporting "export for me all networks of this subnet") and without supporting of tree view (need to do it manually by data in Master Network column). So each export we should edit some data (for example if I need all networks of specified vlan I should export all data, filter out vlan that I need and delete all not necessary data)..

[zombah]

Hello @Genluck, There is existing plans to refactor web ui import-export check #1566