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Getting Started with Native Discovery
Set up Native Discovery, scan your network without installing agents, and find the right starting task.
Native Discovery finds the devices on your network and reports what it learns to CI Reconciliation, where you review it before it changes your CMDB. A small program called an XT Hub runs on a server inside your network and reads devices over SNMP, SSH and WMI. Nothing is installed on the devices themselves.
The workspace
Everything lives in the Asset Discovery console, organized into tabs:
- Overview: the guided setup until your first scan is running. Afterwards it shows the current scan, recent activity and suggested next steps.
- Discovery Scans: every run, with its status and results.
- Scan Templates: the reusable definitions of what to scan.
- Credential Sets: the accounts and community strings the hub uses to read devices.
- Mapping Sets: how discovered values are written into configuration items.
XT Hubs are managed under Settings > Asset Discovery > XT Hubs.
A mental model
One way to hold it together: XT Hubs do the scanning, credential sets let them into devices, scan templates say what to scan, and each scan is one run whose results go to CI Reconciliation.
Choose a protocol
The protocol decides which kind of credential set and which scan template you use. A scan template uses one protocol.
| Protocol | Use it for | What the hub needs |
|---|---|---|
| SNMP | Switches, routers, firewalls, printers and other devices without a login | A community string (v1, v2c) or a user (v3) |
| SSH | Linux, Unix and macOS machines | An account that may log in, with a password or a private key |
| WMI | Windows machines | An account that may query WMI on the target |
Start here
Pick the task that matches what you are trying to do:
- Set up discovery for the first time. Open the Overview tab and follow the four-step checklist. See XT Hub: Register and Install.
- Add a way into your devices. Create a credential set for each protocol you use. See Discovery Credential Sets.
- Check the network before you scan. Give the infrastructure team the checklist in Prerequisites for SNMP, SSH and WMI.
- Scan more of your network. Edit the IP ranges of a scan template, or add another XT Hub for a segment the first hub cannot reach. See Discovery Scan Templates and Scans.
- Understand a result. Open the scan and read the result summary. See Reading Scan Results and Discovery Failures.
- Fix devices that failed. See Troubleshooting Native Discovery.
Order matters
The checklist opens one step at a time, because each step needs the one before it. Register the hub first, because a credential set is delivered to a hub. Add a credential set second, because it decides the protocol. Create the scan template third, because it pairs the hub, the credentials and the IP ranges. Start the scan last. A registered hub only counts as complete once it has enrolled, which happens when the install command has run on the server.
Who can do what
An account administrator registers the first XT Hub. Administrators and configuration managers can edit hubs, scan templates and credential sets. Auditors can read them.
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