NinjaOne NMS: Policy Management

Topic

This article discusses policy management for NinjaOne Network Monitoring and Management Software (NMS).

Environment

NinjaOne NMS
NinjaOne Endpoint Management

Description

You can assign roles to NMS-discovered devices that dictate the policy through which NinjaOne manages them. You must install the NMS Agent must be installed on the device for policy management to take effect.

Select a topic to continue:

Prerequisites
Create A New NMS Policy
Copy Existing NMS Policies
NMS Policy Settings and Configuration
Additional NMS Policy Condition Settings
Assign Default NMS Policies For an Organization
Network Performance

Prerequisites

You must set up monitoring for configuration backup, SNMP traps, Syslog, or NetFlow locally on your devices. Configuration steps differ depending on your device's vendor and model, so we recommend referring to your manufacturer's documentation for assistance with setup.

NinjaOne supports configuration backup monitoring on Hewlett-Packard and Cisco devices.
NinjaOne supports NetFlow/jFlow/sFlow/IPFIX monitoring.
SonicWall requires App Visualization licensing to utilize flow reporting.
You can create NMS policies from custom device roles. When you create the new policy, the configuration modal allows you to select the custom role. For more information, refer to NinjaOne Endpoint Management: Device Roles.

Create a New NMS Policy

Follow these steps to create a new NMS policy:

In NinjaOne, navigate to Administration → Policies → NMS Policies, then click Create New Policy.

**Figure 1**: Administration → Policies → NMS Policies → Add New (click to enlarge)

Assign the new policy a name and an optional description, then click the Role drop-down menu and select NMS. A new drop-down labeled NMS Role will appear. Select the device role and click Create.

**Figure 2:** The Create a policy window (click to enlarge)

The Parent policy field is not configurable for NMS policies at this time. We are working to provide this ability in a future release.

Click Save to complete the new policy creation and assign policy settings.

Copy Existing NMS Policies

To make a copy of an existing policy, place your cursor over the policy, click the ellipsis (three dots) icon, and select Copy.
Name the policy and click Save. Then, make any necessary changes to the configured settings.

NMS Policy Settings and Configuration

This section discusses each tab in the NMS policy and the available settings for configuration.

nms policy_sections.png — **Figure 3:** Policy configuration page sections (click to enlarge)

Network Performance

NinjaOne runs all monitors from the NMS agent on the same LAN.

These settings allow you to monitor network performance using any of the following methods:

Tab name	Description
DNS	Monitor the Domain Name System (DNS) at a specified interval and timeout (in milliseconds) as well as the DNS NetBIOS Name, LMHost, Host, or Forwarded DNS resolution. These policy settings are hard-coded in the NMS delegate and cannot be changed.
Ping	Monitor pings at a specified interval and timeout (in seconds). You can also monitor the packet TTL, pings per node, and the delay between pings (in milliseconds).
Port	Monitor selected ports at a specified interval and timeout (in milliseconds).
HTTP	Monitor HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) or HTTPS (secure) for selected port at a specified interval and timeout (in seconds).

nms policy_network performance_tabs.png — **Figure 4:** Network Performance Tabs (click to enlarge)

These settings let you manage the configuration backup for HP or Cisco devices. You can perform the configuration backup at a specified interval and timeout (in seconds), specify a file transfer timeout to monitor (in seconds), and choose whether to monitor the running configuration or the startup configuration.

For configuration backup to work, you must ensure the Telnet/SSH credentials are set up properly. To do so, navigate to any organization configuration page and add or edit the data in the Credentials section. The Edit and Delete options only display when you move your cursor over the row.

org_credentials_add or edit.png — **Figure 5:** Add, edit, or delete credentials (click to enlarge)

Syslog

These settings allow you to choose different monitoring facilities and severities within the syslog on the device. NinjaOne will not take into account any facilities and severities you clear in the conditions.

NinjaOne discards the following syslog activities by default:

Facility: User
Severity: Debug, Info, Notice

To receive messages or alerts for the above, you must manually configure the alert in the Conditions section of the NMS policy. Select the Syslog condition and then select which messages you want to receive from the Facilities or Severities fields.

NetFlow/sFlow/JFlow Collector:

These settings govern the type of NetFlow traffic you'd like to monitor, any IP (Internet Protocol) addresses from which you'd like to discard data, and the flow noise configuration.

NinjaOne supports several different traffic protocols:

NetFlow (NetFlow 5, NetFlow 9) on the following systems:
- Cisco
- SonicWall
J-Flow
sFlow (sFlow 2, sFlow 5)
IPFIX (NetFlow 10)

SNMP Monitoring

These settings allow you to monitor basic Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) data (like CPU, Memory, Disk, or Network Adapter activity). When adding a monitor, NinjaOne presents the options obtained from the SNMP Library. Refer to NMS: Custom SNMP for more information.

**Figure 6:** Add monitor from Library (click to enlarge)

Conditions

Choose from any of the following available conditions to monitor with this policy:

Condition	Description
Processor	Trigger if the processor utilization is greater than, less than, or equal to a threshold percent defined in the condition dialog box. You can choose between hit count or duration for the type.
Memory	Activate if the memory utilization is greater than, less than, or equal to a threshold percent defined in the condition dialog box. You can choose between hit count or duration for the type.
Disk Usage	This condition is a firewall and VM host policy only, and triggers if the processor utilization is greater than, less than, or equal to a threshold percent defined in the condition dialog box.
Network Adapter Traffic	Trigger if the ingoing or outgoing network adapter traffic is greater than, less than, or equal to a threshold, which you can specify in numerous units. You can choose between hit count or duration for the type.
Network Adapter Traffic Percent	Activate if the incoming or outgoing network adapter traffic is greater than, less than, or equal to a specified threshold percentage. You can choose between hit count or duration for the type.
Network Adapter Status	Monitor whether a network adapter is in a specified status.
Network Adapter Status Change	Monitor when a network adapter changes to or from a specified status.
Ping Latency	Trigger if the ping latency is greater than, less than, or equal to a certain threshold percent. You can choose between hit count or duration for the type.
Ping Packet Loss	Trigger if the ping packet loss is greater than, less than, or equal to a certain threshold percent for a specified duration of time.
Ping Response	Monitor if a ping receives a response after a specified number of attempts.
Http	Monitor for selected status codes, as well as the presence of specified content text.
Ports	Monitor the status of specified ports.
Syslog	Monitor the syslog for the specified logic type (and/or), message, facilities, and severities. Important Note: The last three options in Severities could result in a large number of alerts.
Device Down	Trigger if the device goes down for the duration of time specified in the condition dialog box.
Configuration File	Monitor for changes to the configuration file. Specify whether you'd like to monitor for content being added or removed, specific text to monitor for, or specific text to ignore.Important Note: In the NMS policy's Configuration Backup tab, you can specify the type of configuration you want to monitor. You can choose between Startup-config and Running-config.
SNMP Trap	Monitor if the system receives any trap, a trap containing a specific OID, or a trap value containing a specific target string.

NMS Condition Interval Dependency

The following conditions depend on the SNMP monitoring Interval:

Custom SNMP
Device Down
Memory
All network adapter conditions
Processor
System Uptime

Additional NMS Policy Condition Settings

This section contains additional configuration options.

Reset interval

When creating conditions in your NMS policies, you can specify a reset interval that dictates the amount of time that will pass until the condition automatically resets (the alert will be cleared from the device).

Notify Technicians

You can send notifications to all technicians when a condition is triggered.

nms condition_notify techs.png — **Figure 8:** NMS Condition → Notify Technicians (click to enlarge)

Assign Default NMS Policies For an Organization

Follow these steps to assign default policies that apply organization-wide:

Navigate to Administration → Organizations and select an organization from the list.

**Figure 9:** Administration → Organizations (click to enlarge)

On the organization's configuration screen, select Policies, then open the NMS Policies tab.

**Figure 10:** Policies → NMS Policies (click to enlarge)

Select the desired default policies from the drop-down menus, then click Save.

Once saved, policies are automatically assigned to NMS devices in the organization according to their assigned role.