Auto-Provision Wizard: discover and add network devices

What it is

The Auto-Provision Wizard scans your network and identifies devices for you: vendor, model, interfaces, and device type (switch, router, firewall, access point, UPS, media player). Instead of typing each device by hand, you scan one IP or a whole subnet, review the results, and route every device to its destination — the Rack Editor, the Observatory, Wireless Monitor, UPS Monitor or Digital Signage — in a single pass.

The wizard has 2 steps: 1 Discovery → 2 Results & Assign. You pick the destination per row in the results table; there is no separate “Actions” step anymore.

Where to find it

Open the Terminal page. In the sidebar, under Network Tools, click Auto-Provision. The Auto-Provision Wizard opens as a modal.

Requirement: the Local Agent

CreaRack runs in the cloud and cannot reach private IPs (192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x). The Local Agent (CreaRackAgent.exe), a small program running on a PC inside your network, performs the actual scan.

If the Agent is not running, the scan fails immediately with “Local Agent not available. Please start CreaRackAgent.exe”. Start the Agent first and confirm it shows online. See [[crearack—terminal—local-agent]].

Step 1: Discovery

Choose a scan mode:

Single Device

Discovers one device by IP. Typically completes in 10-30 seconds.

• IP Address — the device IP (e.g. 192.168.1.1).

Subnet Scan (Multiple Devices)

Sweeps a whole network. The Subnet or IP Range field accepts:

• A CIDR subnet from /20 to /30 (e.g. 192.168.1.0/24), or
• An IP range (e.g. 192.168.1.20-192.168.1.30), up to 1024 hosts.
• Max Concurrent — parallel probes (default 20, range 1-50).

Subnet scans can take 10-20 minutes for large ranges (/23 or wider). Keep the tab active; the wizard keeps your session alive during the scan.

Credentials (both modes)

• Saved Credentials — pick a credential from your [[crearack—settings—credential-store]] to auto-fill the fields below. Leave ”— Manual entry —” to type them yourself. Whatever you type here is used only for this scan — it is never stored in your browser.
• SNMP Version — v2c (most common) or v3 (USM).
• SNMP Community — the SNMP v2c read string (default public). You can list several, separated by commas (e.g. xirrus, public) and they are tried in that order. After yours, CreaRack tries public and private, then vendor-specific strings — but it stops after three strings that get no answer, so put the likely ones first. Each device stores the string that actually worked for it.
• SNMPv3 Credentials (v3 only) — Username, Auth Protocol (SHA default) + Auth Key, Privacy Protocol (AES-128 default) + Privacy Key.
• SSH Credentials (Optional) — for devices that give nothing over SNMP: Username, Password, Enable Password (Optional) and Device Type (Auto-detect, Cisco IOS, Cisco NX-OS, Juniper Junos, Arista EOS).

Credentials are remembered per device. When a device is reached over SSH, CreaRack stores the exact credential that worked for that device — even when you scan a whole subnet where each device has a different password, or pick “All saved credentials” and let CreaRack try them in turn until one authenticates. That stored credential is what the Terminal uses to connect later, so you never re-type it.

Deep Discovery (optional)

Tick Deep Discovery to also download vendor MIBs and query extended data (CPU, memory, VLANs, temperature). It is significantly slower — enable it only when you need that detail. The Vendor MIBs button opens the shared manufacturer catalog; see [[crearack—network—mibs-and-vendor-profiles]] for who can change it.

Click Start Discovery. A live panel shows the phases (Ping → ARP → SNMP → HTTP → Enrich) with milestones (“3 hosts alive”, “2 SNMP OK”) and a Devices found feed that fills in real time. When the scan finishes, the wizard moves to Step 2. For what happens under the hood, see [[crearack—network—discovery]].

Step 2: Results & Assign

The Discovered Devices table shows every device with a summary on top (Total, SNMP, SSH, Ping Only, plus an Existing badge if some devices are already in a rack or monitored). Use Export CSV to download the list.

Columns: IP · MAC Address · Hostname · Vendor · Model · Method · Confidence · Destination · Actions.

Reading the results

• Method badge shows how the device was identified: SNMP (green), SSH (blue), HTTP (purple), PING (orange). Extra badges: MIB (deep data loaded), IN RACK, MONITORED.
• Confidence is how much CreaRack learned about the device: green ≥70% solid, orange 40-69% partial (double-check vendor/model), red <40% (often ping-only).

If everything comes back with very low confidence, the Local Agent is probably unreachable or the SNMP community is wrong.

Per-device actions

• Deep Discover — runs deep SNMP discovery for that device (shown if it supports SNMP and has no deep data yet).
• Refresh — re-runs full discovery for that device only, reusing its saved credentials — no need to re-scan the subnet, and no need to re-type anything. The server and the Agent resolve the stored credentials; your browser never sees them. Re-running discovery also brings a device already placed in a rack up to date — its data and its stored SSH credential are refreshed — so reload a device whenever you want to be sure you reflect recent changes on the equipment.
• View — opens the device details with tabs (Overview, plus Hardware, VLANs, Environment, Resources when deep data exists). Overview includes a Validation Report with score, issues and recommendations. An Edit Card button opens the device card editor (see Editing a device’s card below).

Assign destinations and Apply

In the Destination column, pick where each device goes: Rack (Rack Editor), Wireless · Access Point, Wireless · Controller, UPS Monitor, Digital Signage or Observatory (monitor only). CreaRack pre-fills it from the detected type, so often you change nothing.

To go faster with many rows:

1. Check several rows (or use select-all), choose a destination in the Bulk assign bar and click Apply to selected.
2. Or click Auto by type to fill every row’s destination from its detected type in one click.

Then press Apply (it blinks so you don’t miss it). CreaRack routes everything in one pass: monitor destinations go straight to their monitor, Observatory devices become monitoring targets, and rack devices open the Assign Devices to Racks dialog — pick a rack per device, or set one for all with Apply to all devices and Apply, then Confirm & Go to Dashboard. A mix of switch + AP + UPS is applied in a single pass.

Editing a device’s card

Every device has a card you can edit by hand, and you open it with the Edit Card button. The same button — and the same editor — is available everywhere the device appears: in the discovery results here, and in Observatory, Wireless Monitor, UPS Monitor and the Terminal session toolbar. It has three sections:

• Identity — IP Address, Name/Hostname, Type, Vendor, Model, Serial Number, Role, Location and Notes. The IP Address field is for installations where a device gets a new address: change it here and CreaRack updates the device everywhere at once (its monitoring in Observatory and the device placed in the rack), keeping the whole history; if the new address is already used by another device in your organization, the card refuses it and nothing else is changed. Anything else you change here is locked: a later automatic re-discovery will not overwrite it. A locked field shows Manual (locked) with an Auto button to hand it back to automatic discovery. This is how you fix devices the scan couldn’t identify on its own (for example one with no detectable vendor) — set them once and they stay set.
• Credentials — SNMP (v2c community, or v3 username + auth/privacy keys) and SSH (Username, Password, Enable password). For security, stored passwords and keys are never shown: the fields are blank with a “leave blank to keep” hint, so you only type them when you want to change them. Everything is encrypted before it is stored.
• Groups — which device groups the device belongs to.

Press Save Card to apply. If you open the card of a device that doesn’t have one yet (for example a target you added to monitoring by hand), CreaRack creates it on the spot so you can label it.

Adding an Access Point (AP) or WiFi device

APs and other WiFi gear are added with this same wizard — there is no separate flow:

1. Discover them in Step 1 (their IP or subnet, with the SNMP community). CreaRack identifies them as access points.
2. In Step 2, set their Destination to Wireless · Access Point (or Wireless · Controller) and press Apply. If you also want one in its physical cabinet, choose Rack instead and mount it there.

Details: [[crearack—wireless—add-access-points]]. UPS devices work the same way via UPS Monitor — see [[crearack—ups—add-ups-devices]].

Recovering previous scans

In Step 1, Load Previous Results opens Saved Scans: your stored scans (up to 20) with Load and Delete actions. If a scan was cut short (closed tab), it appears marked Interrupted with Restore / Discard options.

If you ran a scan in the last 24 hours, Step 1 also shows it at the top — name, device count and date — with a Reopen button that takes you straight to the results list, ready to assign.

Saved scans live in the database, not your browser — they survive cache clears and are shared with everyone in your organization.

Scanning again: devices are recognized by MAC

When you scan a network again, CreaRack matches each device you already have by its MAC address, not by its IP. If the device answers on the same IP as before, its existing card updates in place — instead of showing up as a duplicate — and its history, its Observatory monitoring and its place in the rack stay attached. Fields you locked by hand are still respected.

If a known device answers on a different IP, CreaRack no longer changes the IP on its own. Instead, the device’s card on the Devices page (Network → Devices) shows a New IP detected notice with two buttons: Apply new IP updates the IP everywhere at once (device card, monitoring, rack placement) the same way editing it by hand would; Dismiss leaves the device on its old IP and stops CreaRack from proposing that address again (it will not be added as a separate device either). If the device later answers again on its original IP, the notice clears by itself. Both the detection and whichever choice you make are recorded in the System Logs, with the user who ran the scan; if the new IP already belongs to another device in your organization, that is recorded too.

Two things happen on their own after a re-scan (once the IP question, if any, is settled): a device already monitored in Observatory refreshes its name and SNMP settings there, and a device that had a Deep Discover snapshot gets a fresh one requested automatically. If the same MAC answers on two IPs during one scan (a device with two management addresses), both cards are kept.

Inactivity and the results list

Your organization’s inactivity timeout (Settings → Session) is paused while a scan is running and while the results list is waiting for you to assign devices. It resumes when you Apply, go back to Step 1 or close the wizard. If the session does expire anywhere in the app, logging back in returns you to the page you were on.

SSH Host Keys (security)

When CreaRack reaches a device over SSH during discovery, it records the device’s host key — a unique fingerprint that proves the device’s identity. The first time it connects it memorizes that fingerprint (Trust On First Use); on every later connection it checks the fingerprint still matches. If it changed, CreaRack refuses the connection and does not send any credentials — this protects you from a man-in-the-middle device impersonating yours and capturing your passwords.

In Step 1, SSH Host Keys (next to Load Previous Results) opens the list of trusted fingerprints for your organization: Host · Type · Fingerprint · First seen. If no device has been reached over SSH yet, the list is empty — keys are learned automatically the first time a device is discovered over SSH.

Use Reset when a device legitimately changes its key — for example after you reinstall it or upgrade its firmware. After a reset, CreaRack relearns the new fingerprint on the next discovery. Reach for this if discovery starts refusing a device you know is genuine.

After applying: place devices in the rack

Devices sent to racks appear as pending in the Rack Editor of each rack, with the management IP pre-filled. See [[crearack—racks—auto-provision]] for the pending panel and drag-and-drop placement.

Troubleshooting

Related

• [[crearack—network—discovery]] — how the discovery pipeline works (ICMP → ARP → SNMP → HTTP)
• [[crearack—racks—auto-provision]] — place discovered devices in the rack
• [[crearack—wireless—add-access-points]] — add APs to Wireless Monitor
• [[crearack—ups—add-ups-devices]] — add UPS devices to UPS Monitor
• [[crearack—settings—credential-store]] — saved credentials used for prefill
• [[crearack—terminal—local-agent]] — install and run the Local Agent
• [[crearack—network—gestion-red]] — network management overview