Feature Suggestion – Column for IPv4

[hchntpete]

Hi, I’d like to suggest a feature (unless it’s already present and I’m completely missing it).
A dedicated column for IPv4 address like there is for MAC Address, OS Version, Get Host Name, etc. It would be separate from the Ping Reply column so it could be sortable, and have its own $variable to use in “Execute local/remote” commands.
Thanks!

[doug]

Pete – Did you know that you can just enter an IP address into the hosts column? Then you can use ‘Get host name’ to populate the ‘Get Host Name’ column, which would give you what I think you are looking for, which is one column with host names and one column with IP addresses, both of which are sortable.

-Doug

[hchntpete]

Thanks for the quick reply.
Yes, that would give us both columns and be sortable on either, but a lot of times I’m only given the FQDN to start with. A workaround is to ping everything, copy to a text editor, strip out “Reply from” and the milliseconds, then reimport by IP
with the FQDN as Notes or Description.

We may be using BatchPatch in a unique way.. Less on the patching side, more on the data collection and script execution side.
-pete

[doug]

Thanks. That makes sense… but can you explain to me why you need the IP in the first place if you already have the FQDN? In your original posting you mentioned that you want to be able to use the IP in local and remote commands, but I guess what I’m confused about is why you would need to use the IP in those commands as opposed to just using the short host name or FQDN, which you already would have in the hosts column and could use in local and remote commands as $computer?

[hchntpete]

When we have planned reboots of large applications, we get a list of FQDNs where we need to suspend Tivoli monitoring so we do not get node-down alerts. I drop the list into BatchPatch and am able to use an Execute Local to send an overly-complex command line against each $computer to schedule the suppression. The monitoring system prefers IP Address, but FQDN works as a fuzzy match.

We also have dozens of sites, and sorting by IP Address would group servers by subnet, making it easy to spot misnamed or mis-IP’d servers.

Not to pile on, but a dedicated column for the computer’s registered Time Zone would be a helpful feature too.
thanks again!

[doug]

Thanks. We’ll consider these.

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