Managing IP Addresses

[bigb89]

Hi,

I work for a small hosting company and right now we need find a way to manage all of the IP addresses that we have. Let me a give a background on the situation so that you guys may understand what I'm trying to do.

Each of our servers range from 10 to even 250 IP Addresses. We also have one server that keeps IPs that aren't being used by any other server. So whenever there's a new customer or some customer wants more IPs, I just go to the server that keeps the unused IPs and remove how many IPs I need and then I put them in servers that need more IPs. Even though this may seem like exhausting process, it has been working decent. But lately I had some troubles with IPs because the server that was keeping unused IPs was keeping some IPs that were actually being used in other servers already. So I would remove an IP that I thought it was available but then to find out that it was already being used in another machine.

So here's my question: Are there any tools or applications that I could use to manage all of the IPs in our network? I would like to be able to see what IPs we have available, the hostname of the machine that IP is at, find out if IPs are overlapping and so on.

Does anyone know of an application or script that can do such thing?

[TerryP]

Are you using statically configured IPs or DHCP ?

[bigb89]

Originally Posted by TerryP

Are you using statically configured IPs or DHCP ?

All of the IPs are static.

First of all, due to the lack of information about your specific setup, I'll assume you lease IP's in a single range, I honestly don't know how many so let's assume you own an entire /8 range.

We have 35 different class C IPs, and most servers has about 10 different class C IPs.

I just want to be able to know if an IP is already being used by another server or not, and if it is being used, I would like to know in what server (hostname) the IP is being used at. That way there won't be any risk of my assigning an IP that's already being used.

[BSDfan666]

This is something any competent administrator should have kept recorded in a database of some sort..

First of all, due to the lack of information about your specific setup, I'll assume you lease IP's in a single range, I honestly don't know how many so let's assume you own an entire /8 range. (CIDR notation)

Now, You have a range of 16777214 IP's and want to allocate them between various departments in your company..

Joe from Marketing requests a small range, you look in your database.. and assign his department 10.0.1.0/25, it's a small department.. only 60 current employees, but they'll grow over time.

Marketing Department:
Net Contact: joe AT marketing.bigcompany.us
Network: 10.0.1.0/25
Range: 10.0.0.1-10.0.1.126 (126 Hosts)
Netmask: 255.255.255.128
Broadcast: 10.0.1.127

Makes sense, right?

[cajunman4life]

First off, a spreadsheet would do wonders

Probably the most accurate way is to go from machine to machine, run ifconfig, and see what addresses are assigned to each machine. Make sure you record this information somewhere... spreadsheet, database, even a plain text file (if that's your fancy). Then your headaches will ease.

[ai-danno]

One word-

IPPLAN.

It's on sourceforge and it rocks. I manage about 40 Class C blocks for client assignment, mostly all subnetted as well, and IPPLAN works wonders. It will change your life!!!! Just kidding, but it's pretty darn cool. It's a php/mysql webapp.


Before that, as mentioned above, I worked with a spreadsheet. The problem with a spreadsheet comes when more than one person is putting their hand in the cookie jar (and at the same time.)

BTW, you should post questions like this elsewhere on this site... only because I was trolling outside my normal haunts (I'm an OBSD user) did I notice this question.

[dk_netsvil]

I use IPPlan to manage 20 class C blocks and it saves me alot of time. I've also played with Racktables to provide a 2D representation of my colocation racks and it may also be worth looking into if your data center has multiple racks.

[funtaff]

If I might recommend a commercial product - Men and Mice is a professional solution to such a problem:

http://www.menandmice.com/

I have no direct affiliation with them, but we're currently working with their product to manage our rat's nest of an IP scheme.

[bigb89]

Right on, thanks for all the replies guys!

I'll definitely look into that and I'm really looking forward to give it a go and see how will it work .