CSPC Collector Quick Start Guide

CSPC Quick Start Guide

Cisco CSPC

Quick Start Guide 2.11

March 2024

Updated: May 29, 2024

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION TO CSPC ........................................................................................................................ 3

PREREQUISITES ....................................................................................................................................................3

CSPC SUPPORTED BROWSERS ...............................................................................................................................3

VIRTUAL PLATFORM REQUIREMENTS ...................................................................................................... 4

IMPORTANT NOTE .................................................................................................................................. 5

DOWNLOAD THE VIRTUAL MACHINE IMAGE ........................................................................................... 5

CONFIGURE APPLIANCE IP ADDRESS ....................................................................................................... 5

CONFIGURE IPV4 ADDRESS ....................................................................................................................................5

CONFIGURE IPV6 ADDRESS ...................................................................................................................................7

SETUP THE SOFTWARE APPLIANCE FOR THE FIRST TIME .......................................................................... 9

CONFIGURE CSPC USING THE WIZARD................................................................................................... 10

INSTALL ........................................................................................................................................................... 10

REGISTER......................................................................................................................................................... 12

ADD DEVICES ................................................................................................................................................... 13

ACCESS CREDENTIALS ........................................................................................................................................ 14

COLLECT .......................................................................................................................................................... 16

PORT USAGE INFORMATION ................................................................................................................. 16

ACCESS CSPC USER INTERFACE .............................................................................................................. 18

UPDATE DEVICES, CREDENTIALS AND COLLECTION SETTINGS ................................................................................... 19

VIEW STATUS OF DISCOVERY, COLLECTION AND UPLOADS....................................................................................... 19

LEGAL INFORMATION ........................................................................................................................... 21

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Introduction to CSPC

The Cisco Common Service Platform Collector (CSPC) is an SNMP-based tool that discovers and collects

information from the Cisco devices installed on your network. The CSPC software provides an extensive

collection mechanism to gather various aspects of customer device data. Information gathered by the collector is

used by several Cisco Service offers, such as Smart Net Total Care, Partner Support Service, and Business

Critical Services. The data is used to provide inventory reports, product alerts, configuration best practices,

technical service coverage, lifecycle information, and many other detailed reports and analytics for both the

hardware and operating system (OS) software.

This document provides information about how to download, install and configure a new CSPC collector on a

virtual machine that is running ESXi 6.7 (20497097) and above.

If you are using the ISO image for the CSPC, please refer to the CSPC ISO Image Installation Guide for

instructions.

In order to configure a CSPC and ensure a successful setup, a workflow wizard which simplifies the CSPC

configuration is included with the CSPC 2.11 and later releases. You should know the SNMP credentials that are

set up on your devices.

This document will walk you through the steps for a basic first time CSPC setup.

Prerequisites

Register to the required services:

• How to register SNTC Service

• To register for PSS portal access, please click to open a new mail, copy the below and provide the

requested details.

Please open a case to assign a Super Admin for my Company. (please submit the information below.)

Partner Company Name:

Partner Location:

Super Admin Name:

Super Admin Cisco.com ID:

Super Admin Email:

Technical Contact Phone Number:

Technical Contact Cisco.com ID:

Technical Contact Email:

Technical Contact Phone Number:

Existing PSS contract number:

CSPC Supported Browsers

•

Firefox version 80

•

Internet Explorer (IE) version 11

•

Chrome 85

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Note: Allocate 2-4 hours for the installation, depending on your network size. The algorithm runs only once to

optimize storage and reduces the time required in future upgrades. The system will automatically reboot after

installing the patch.

Virtual Platform Requirements

This section provides information about the virtual platform requirements. This guide does not provide

directions on how to install the different virtual platforms.

As of CSPC 2.11 release, there is a single configurable OVA image that supports multiple configurations.

Below are listed the minimum system requirements for the collector images that run on a ESXi 7.0 virtual

platform:

Table 1: VM Specification for SNTC/PSS Customer

Specification

Small

Medium

Large

vCore count

4

8

12

RAM

4 GB

8 GB

16 GB

HDD (GB)

250

500

1000

Number of

Devices

Up to10,000

20K or less

40K or less

A minimum of one virtual NIC is needed for all configurations. The number of NICs required is

dependent upon the network topology.

Table 2: VM Specification for BCS Customer

Specification

Medium CSPC

Large CSPC

Number of Devices

<10,000

Up to 40,000

Physical Core Count (Cores)

4

6

Core to vCore Count

2

vCore Count (Cores)

8

12

RAM (GB)

8 GB

16 GB

Hard Disk Space

500 GB

1 TB

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Important Note

On Installation: If 2.11 startup job(/etc/rc.d/rc.local) is running for more than 20 mins then try

pressing Alt+F1 through Alt+F6 to shift to alternate virtual terminals and you may see one of them

waiting for with the admin password prompt. (if so, enter password)

Download the Virtual Machine Image

After ensuring that your virtual environment can provide the needed resources, the next step is to download the

CSPC collector image. The most recent software image can be obtained from the download center.

To access the CSPC collector image, perform the following steps:

•

Go to the following URL: CSPC Image Download Center

•

Login with your CCO Credential if requested.

•

Select the required image and click Download. Accept the Terms and Conditions to start the

image

download.

•

Deploy this image to your environment.

Configure Appliance IP Address

After the OVA has been installed, you are prompted to enter an IP Address for the collector. Choose one of the

three options:

Configure IPv4 address

1. Select 1 to configure IPv4 address

2. Select any one option:

a. Select 1 to fetch IP address automatically.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

b. Select 2 to enter a static IP Address for your appliance. Enter the Net Mask and Default

Gateway.

3. Select 3 to go back to main menu.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Choose option 1 to reconfigure IPv4 address, choose option 2 to reconfigure IPv6 address or choose option 3

to go to command line.

After selecting option 3, ssl certificate will be generatedduring installation instead of static certificates.

Configure IPv6 Address

1. Select 2 to configure IPv6 address

2. Select any one option:

a. Select 1 to fetch IP address automatically.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

b. Select 2 to enter the IP Address manually.

3. Select option 3 to go to the Command Line (Shell) if you would like to use CLI commands to configure

the collector IP address instead of using the installation wizard. Refer to Configure CSPC appliance via CLI

for instructions.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Setup the Software Appliance for the First Time

Open the browser and enter the URL displayed at the bottom of the last screen in the previous step using the

following URL format: https://<cspc-server-ip>:8001/.

The first time you log in, the installation wizard will prompt you to establish an admin password.

•

Enter an admin password and confirm it.

Passwords must be at least (8) characters long and must contain

• At least one lowercase letter (a, b, c, d...z)

• At least one Uppercase letter (A, B, C, D…Z)

• At least one number (0, 1, 2, 3…9)

• At least one special characters - ,@#!$%^&*()_+|~-=\`{}[]:”;’<>?,/).

CSPC Quick Started Guide

•

Enter the characters shown in the grey captcha box. Click Login.

This will create a new admin password which will be used to access the collector UI via browser.

Record the admin password!

• You will be prompted to login again. Enter the credentials you just created, and the captcha

characters. Click Login.

• Select and answer the password reset questions when prompted and click OK.

• Read and accept the Cisco Systems - End User License Agreement. The Install screen for the

collector is displayed.

Configure CSPC using the Wizard

In this section, you will see how to use the workflow provided by the wizard to configure the CSPC to collect

device information.

Install

The Install and Register screens appear only the first time you log into the CSPC. The red asterisk * indicates

a required field.

Do not skip these frist two configuration steps because they do not appear with subsequent logins to the

wizard.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Enter time in 24-hour format and always ensure the date and time of the collector appliance is accurate with

respect to the installed location time zone or else the appliance might be at risk to fail communicating with Cisco.

Proxy server is optional. It will take up to 30 seconds to finish installing the collector followed by a

configuration summary.

• Review the Initial Appliance Setup, and click OK to finish the setup or click Cancel to go back to

the - Install step and make any necessary corrections.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Register

It is a leading practice to register the collector to a service such as Partner Support Service or Smart Net Total

Care during the initial software installation. You should have generated and saved a Registration Certificate file

from the specific service portal. In the Register screen of the wizard you will apply the registration certificate to

the collector.

If you skip this configuration step and choose to register the collector without registering with a service,

you will need to follow the registration upgrade instructions in the CSPC User Guide in order to be able to upload

collected data to Cisco. The Register screen does not appear with subsequent logins to the wizard.

You must be connected to the Internet in order to register the collector to Cisco.

• Select the first option, Provide Service Certificate from the service portal you plan to use this

collector with, to register the CSPC to the Service.

• Browse to the Service Certificate file you downloaded earlier.

• Click Next at the bottom of the screen to continue with registration.

• This takes several minitues, wait till the wizard uploads the registration certificate file and applies

service specific rules package and components. Click OK when the successful upload message

is displayed.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Add Devices

In order to discover network devices and collect device data, you must enter the device credentials. In this

section, you will see the process of configuring the CSPC Collector to discover by IP Address or by Protocol

from the Add Devices screens.

The IP addresses that are referenced should be as tight or as restrictive as possible, while

allowing coverage

for all required devices.

➢ The two lists specify which IPs the CSPC may use for collector operations

such as discoveries or data collection.

➢ Specific IPs can be provided or wildcards can be used to replace octets of

an IP

to create a range.

➢ If an IP or range of IPs is not included in these fields, the CSPC will not

communicate with a device that has such an IP.

➢ Entering *.*.*.* will allow CSPC to use the credential with any IP. For

example: 172.16.*.* would

only allow the credentials to be used for devices

in the 172.16.0.0/16 subnet.

As your network changes, you can return to the CSPC installation wizard and modify the list of devices.

You can add devices by entering a specific IP address or an IP address range. Use > to add your entries to

the selected IP Address or selected IP Address Range lists.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

• Click the Discover by Protocol tab if you have seed devices or want to discover other connected

devices using protocols. Discovering devices by protocol will take longer than Discover by IP

Address.

• Select the required Protocol(s), HOP Count, and Seed IP Address. Use > to add the devices to

the selected Seed IP Address list.

• When done specifying devices, click Next.

Access Credentials

Collector operation requires that you enter the CSPC device credentials in order to discover network

devices and collect device data. The setup of device credentials in CSPC is used for two purposes:

• SNMP credentials are used for the initial discovery of the devices, and for data collection.

• In addition to SNMP, the remaining credentials (Telnet or SSH) are used for data collection from

the discovered devices.

You can return to the wizard workflow to make changes to the Access Credentials as your network

changes.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

• You can add credential using one of following and click Next:

• If you select SNMPV1/V2 enter Credential Name, and Read String. Use > to add the credential to

the Selected Credentials list.

• If you select SNMPV3 enter Credential Name, User Name, Auth Algorithm, Password,

Privacy Algorithm, and Password. Use > to add the credential to the Selected Credentials list.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Collect

The final step of installing a CSPC Collector is to complete the process of discovering devices, collecting device

information and uploading the inventory to the Cisco Data Center. From the CSPC wizard Collect screen, two

options are available for device discovery, inventory collection and upload.

• Start the discovery, collection, and upload on demand right now.

• Create a collection schedule that recurs on a periodic basis.

Scheduling periodic collections is a leading practice.

Select Start Collection now and click Collect Now to start collection instantly or click Schedule Periodic

Collection and click Schedule to collect at a later time. You can schedule Start and End Date/Time or select the

Recurrence pattern as Minutely, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly as shown in figure below.

It is recommended to schedule once a week.

Port Usage Information

Connection to the list of Cisco servers (IP's and ports) in the below table is needed for the collector to

communicate with them. In addition, the CCO login credentials that is registered and associated to the

service contract is also needed. The CSPC uses SSL for uploading to the Cisco Data Center. ACL’s on

your firewall might need to be configured to allow the CSPC to upload successfully.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

The CSPC collector supports on demand and automatic upgrades.

Note: By default, the auto-update feature is disabled. You should enable the auto-update feature to reduce

the maintenance time of the collector.

Host Name

IP Address

Port

concsoweb-

prd.cisco.com

72.163.7.113

HTTPS (TCP/443) outbound

dl.cisco.com

dl1.cisco.com

dl2.cisco.com

72.163.7.60

173.37.146.12

HTTPS (TCP/80) and HTTPS

(TCP/443) outbound

sso.cisco.com

173.37.144.208

HTTPS (TCP/443) outbound

Note : If customer is registered with smart service account (such as SNTC, PSS, or SC) and want to install

CPSC 2.8.1.4 or upgrading to 2.8.1.5 or 2.8.1.6 then, follow below steps to check connectivity is properly

configured for uploading data to Cisco backend.

Execute below command as root user

grep nettools /opt/ConcsoTgw/tail-end-gateway-decoupled/conf/csof_config.xml

If above command returns the output then, follow below steps to configure connectivity as default to upload data

to Cisco backend

sed -i ':a;N;$!ba;s/file/#file/1' /opt/ConcsoTgw/tail-end-gateway-

decoupled/bin/run.sh

sed -i 's/nettools-upload.cisco.com/72.163.7.113/g' /opt/ConcsoTgw/tail-end-

gateway-decoupled/conf/csof_config.xml

service concsotgw restart

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Access CSPC User Interface

In this section, you will see how to access the CSPC, following the above intial set-up..

Access the CSPC in a browser window by completing the following steps:

• Enter into the browser the IP Address of your collector using the following URL format:

https://<cspc-server-ip>:8001/

• Enter the username, password and the text in the image, Click Login.

After all software is loaded, the CSPC graphical user interface (GUI) appears. From here you have access to

all collector functions. Our CSPC User Guide provides details.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

Update Devices, Credentials and Collection Settings

Click the Workflow button in the toolbar to open the installation wizard to apply updates and changes to

devices, credentials and collection settings.

View Status of Discovery, Collection and Uploads

You can view status of collector jobs, click the Job Run Status button in the toolbar to view the results of

discovery, collection and upload.

CSPC Quick Started Guide

The details of the data collection are filled in. A summary is above and the details are

below.

• You can review the collection report after the process has finished,, click Export Report.

• Click Close when you are finished. The job will continue to Collection run in the background.

Once you have registered the collector with a service certificate, when the collection job completes, inventory will

run, then the upload will automatically be sent to the Cisco Data Center. It may take up to 24 hours before your

upload will be processed and available in the portal.

After the initial upload is processed, you can view device details in the portal: https://services.cisco.com

Subsequent uploads can be viewed by going to the service’s portal.

• For SNTC select Library > Administration > Upload Processing

• For PSS select Library > Inventory > Inventory Collection

CSPC Quick Started Guide

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