Netdisco Network Discovery and Management

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

## Overview

Netdisco is an open source, web based network management and discovery tool. It polls switches, routers, and access points over SNMP, CLI, and device APIs, collects IP and MAC address data into a PostgreSQL database, and presents a web interface to inventory every device, browse and search ports and nodes, locate where a MAC or IP address is connected, and see how devices link together. This AMI delivers a fully configured, security-hardened Netdisco server behind an nginx reverse proxy, backed by a bundled local PostgreSQL database preloaded with MAC vendor reference data, eliminating the manual container setup, database provisioning, and authentication hardening a bare install requires. It ships Netdisco 2.101000 from the official netdisco container images.

## Why This Image Over Alternatives

Most Netdisco deployments ship with an anonymous guest that has full administrative rights - this image disables that guest entirely and seeds a unique admin login on the first boot of every instance, so nothing is ever open to the network. Where self-managed installs co-locate database files on the OS disk, this image isolates all PostgreSQL data on a dedicated, independently resizable EBS volume for safer backups and scaling. A unique database password and a unique SNMP read only community are also generated per instance and written to a root only file.

## What Is Included

• Netdisco 2.101000 run from the official netdisco web and backend container images
• nginx reverse proxy so the web interface is served on port 80 without exposing the container port
• Bundled PostgreSQL 16 carrying Netdisco's schema plus MAC vendor (OUI) reference data, ready to identify device and node vendors out of the box
• A required login - the default anonymous guest is disabled and a per-instance admin user is seeded
• Unique per-instance secrets - the admin password, the database password, and the SNMP read only community are generated on first boot
• Dedicated data volume carrying the PostgreSQL data on its own EBS disk
• Loopback-only database listener with scram-sha-256 password authentication

## Secure First Boot

On first boot a one-shot service rotates the database role password, generates a unique SNMP read only community and a unique admin password, re-seeds the admin user, resolves the instance public IP through EC2 IMDSv2, and writes the credentials to a file readable only by root. No shared or default login ever exists in the image.

## AWS Integration Points

• Amazon EBS - PostgreSQL data lives on a dedicated EBS volume; use EBS Snapshots for point-in-time backups or resize storage independently of the OS disk.
• Amazon VPC - Deploy within your VPC and reach the web interface over port 80 (front with TLS for public exposure); the bundled database never listens on a public interface.
• Amazon CloudWatch - Forward Netdisco, nginx, and system logs to CloudWatch for centralized monitoring and alerting.

## Use Cases

• Campus or enterprise network inventory - A campus with hundreds of switches and access points can automatically discover and catalog every device with vendor, model, and software version, replacing manual spreadsheets and reducing audit preparation from days to minutes.
• MSP multi-client endpoint location - A managed service provider supporting multiple client VLANs can instantly find which switch port a given MAC or IP address is connected to, cutting troubleshooting time when onboarding new clients or investigating connectivity issues.
• Compliance-driven port auditing - A team needing to locate rogue devices for regulatory compliance can search ports and nodes, track historical connectivity, and review network topology from one web interface.

## Get Started

Connect over SSH, read the generated admin password, open the web interface in your browser, and add your first device by entering the hostname or IP of a switch or router that permits SNMP from this instance. Discovery and polling run as background jobs on the backend daemon.

## cloudimg Support

24/7 technical support by email and live chat. Our engineers assist with deployment, Netdisco and PostgreSQL configuration, SNMP discovery, user management, and performance tuning. Critical issues receive a one-hour average response time.

To discuss your architecture, contact our team through the support channels listed below.

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