Global Search
One search box across the whole installation - monitored nodes, Atlas views, devices seen on a switch port but not yet monitored, configuration pages, applications, commands and the online resources. Opens with Alt+F3.
Almost anything you need to reach in NetCrunch can be reached by typing part of its name. The search button sits at the right-hand end of the top bar, next to Help, and Alt+F3 opens it from anywhere in the console.
Results appear as you type. There is nothing to submit and no scope to pick first - every source is searched at once, and the groups you see are the ones that matched.
search-nodes
Finding Nodes
A node matches on considerably more than its name.
- Names and addresses
- Display name, node name, IP address, DNS name, NetBIOS name, computer name, system name, and the operating system's own node name. The node id matches as well.
- Device type
- Manufacturer, category and subcategory. Typing
cisco,printerorfirewallfinds nodes by what they are rather than by what someone called them. - Location and custom fields
- The node's location and its two custom information fields.
- Tags
- Any tag on the node.
- MAC address
- Bare hex, or separated by hyphens or colons -
e0acf196f7c2,e0-ac-f1-96-f7-c2ande0:ac:f1:96:f7:c2all find the same node. - Address space
@sitefinds every node in that address space, and10.0.0.5@sitenarrows it to one address within it.
Status is searchable by name. Typing down returns the nodes that are currently down, and a node with monitoring switched off matches the reason it was disabled. Typing nc or netcrunch finds the NetCrunch server's own node.
Selecting a node opens the full node menu - status, reports, IP tools, node settings and the rest - so a node found here can be worked on without navigating to it first.
When more than one node matches, the Nodes group offers a Multi-Select checkbox. Turn it on, check the nodes you want, then right-click to run a single node menu action against all of them at once.
search-connected
Devices That Are Not Monitored Yet
NetCrunch keeps the MAC address tables it reads from your switches, and a search for a MAC or IP address looks through them too. What comes back are the devices that are not in the Atlas: something is connected to the network, NetCrunch has seen it, and nobody is monitoring it.
Each result shows the MAC address, the IP addresses seen with it, the vendor that owns the address block when it is known, and the switch and interface where it was last seen. Two actions are offered:
- Show Switch Interfaces
- Opens the switch's Interfaces page with that port selected.
- Add Node to Monitoring
- Adds the device, using the same monitoring host as the switch it is connected to. Once added it leaves this group, because it is now a node.
search-views
Atlas Views
Views match on name, and each result shows the folder it sits in, so two similarly named views in different folders can be told apart. Selecting one opens it.
This is not the Atlas Tree's own search, which filters the tree in place. Use the tree when you are already browsing the atlas; use this when you would rather not go looking for the tree first. See Navigation.
search-console
Configuration, Applications and Commands
- Configuration
- Settings pages, matched on title, description and keywords, so a setting can be found by what it does rather than by remembering which category holds it. Selecting one opens that page. Desktop Console only.
- Applications
- The bundled tools and pages - the IP Tools (Ping, Traceroute, DNS Info, Service Scanner, Port Scanner, Wake on LAN, Who Is, DNS Audit, MAC Resolver, Subnet Calculator, Ping Scanner, SNMP Scanner), Reports, Performance Trends, SLA, Tasks, Receiver, Flow Analyzer, Auto Screens, NetCrunch Control and the alert pages. The view tabs are included too, so
hyper-vortop chartsjumps straight to that tab. - Commands
- Actions rather than places - Add IP Device, Scan IPv4 Subnets, Search AD containers, Import devices from File, Add Network Atlas View, Add Composite Status, Add Monitoring Template, Add Monitoring Target, Add Cloud Service, Add Telemetry Node, Add Monitoring Probe, Add Monitoring Pack and Import from PRTG. Only the commands your license covers are offered. Desktop Console only.
search-online
Documentation and Online Resources
The same box also searches the documentation, the Knowledge Base, blog articles and product news. Documentation opens in the help viewer; the rest open in a browser.
Documentation is matched on topic title, abstract and tags rather than on the full text of every page, so a phrase buried in the middle of a topic will not necessarily find it.
The Knowledge Base, blog and news indexes are fetched from the AdRem website and kept for a week, so they cost nothing on each keystroke and survive a short outage. On a server with no internet access these groups are simply absent and nothing else is affected.
search-results
Working with the Results
Results are grouped by what they are, with nodes and views first and the online resources last. Each group shows its first three matches with a Show more link that expands the rest, and holds at most 100 - a search that matches five thousand nodes is a filter, not a search.
The whole panel works from the keyboard: Arrow Down moves from the search box into the first group, the arrow keys move within a group, and Tab and Shift+Tab move between groups.
Opening the panel before typing anything shows Recent - the last few results you picked - so a repeated trip takes one keystroke.
Results respect access rights. Nodes and Atlas views are filtered by the permissions of the signed-in user, so two people searching for the same text can legitimately see different results.
Node and view results stay live while the panel is open. A node deleted elsewhere disappears from the results rather than waiting to be clicked and failing.
- Custom Node Tools
Add your own commands to the node menu in the Desktop Console, so the tools you already use on a device are one click away from the node representing it.
- SSH Terminal
An interactive shell on a monitored node, opened from the node menu in either console. The session is carried by the probe that monitors the node, so a device on an isolated network is reachable without a separate jump host.
- Navigation
How the console is laid out — the two navigation layouts, the five main sections, the Home screen, and the Atlas Tree panel with its search and ordering options.
- Working with Grids
Nodes, Monitors, Active Alerts and Alert History are the same grid with different data in it. Columns, filtering, grouping and CSV export work identically in all of them, in both consoles.