Run Discovery jobs

A Discovery job tells your Orb agents what to look at and how often. The Console generates the agent policy and distributes it for you, so there is no policy file to write or copy onto an agent.

Discovery jobs live under Assurance → Discovery jobs in the NetBox Labs Console.

Public Preview - Assurance in the NetBox Labs Console is in Public Preview for NetBox Cloud customers. Contact your account team to enable it for your organization.

Before you begin

• At least one Orb agent must be online. A job cannot be created without one. See Manage Orb agents.
• Device discovery needs credentials. Every device in scope must have a credential assigned before the job can be created. See Manage device credentials.
• Network discovery needs prefixes, IP addresses, or IP ranges in NetBox. The wizard lists those records as the scan targets. Add at least one in NetBox before you create the job.

Discovery job types

You choose a job type on the first step of the wizard, under Pick discovery job type.

The wizard also shows an Integration type, for collecting from a controller platform. It cannot be selected during the preview.

Create a Discovery job

The wizard has two steps, Configuration and Scope. What you fill in on each step depends on the job type.

Step 1: Configuration

1. Go to Assurance → Discovery jobs and select New Job.
2. Enter a Job name.
3. Pick the discovery job type.
4. Select one or more Orb agents to run the job. At least one is required.
5. Set a Schedule, or leave it empty. See Scheduling below.
6. Add a Description if it helps your team, which is optional.
7. Set the option that matches the job type:
   • Device. Choose what configuration to capture:
     • Capture running configuration - The config in memory that is currently being executed.
     • Capture saved configuration - The stored config that will be executed if you reboot the device.
   • Network. Leave Fast mode on to scan fewer ports than the default scan, or clear it for a fuller scan. Fast mode is on by default.
8. Select Next: Scope.

Step 2: Scope

Everything listed is in scope by default. Remove anything the job should not touch, using the remove control at the end of its row. Searching and filtering change only what you can see on screen, never what the job will act on. At least one target must remain in scope, or Create stays disabled.

Device jobs

1. Review the devices that are in scope.
2. Assign a credential to each device that needs one, using the credential control in the Credential column. You can create a credential here without leaving the wizard.
3. To find devices still missing one, set the Credential filter to Missing. All and Assigned are the other options.
4. Select Create.

If any device in scope still lacks a credential, Create stays disabled and its tooltip tells you how many are outstanding.

Network jobs

Network jobs scan prefixes, IP addresses, and IP ranges already documented in NetBox. They do not need credentials.

1. Use the Prefixes, IP addresses, and IP ranges tabs to review what is in scope. Each tab is independent. Removing a prefix does not change the other tabs.
2. Remove anything the job should not scan.
3. Select Create.

If every listed prefix, address, and range has been removed, Create stays disabled until at least one target remains.

Scheduling

Schedule takes a cron expression.

• Leave it empty to run the job once, as soon as it is created.
• Enter a cron expression to run it repeatedly. The field shows 0 0 * * * as an example, which runs the job daily at midnight.

Continuous discovery is what keeps NetBox aligned with your network, so most jobs beyond a first test should carry a schedule.

Check what a run did

1. Go to Assurance → Run history, or open the Run history tab on the Discovery page.
2. Find the run you care about and open it.
3. Read its status and what it discovered. A failed run carries a reason.

Discovery does not write to NetBox directly. What a run finds becomes deviations for you to review. See Review and resolve deviations.

Troubleshooting

Create is disabled. For a device job, a device in scope has no credential. Set the Credential filter to Missing to find them. For a network job, every listed prefix, address, and range has been removed, or NetBox has none to list. Add at least one target in NetBox, or put one back into scope.

A run fails on authentication. The credential bound to that device is wrong, or the reference it holds does not resolve in your vault. Check that the Orb agent's vault configuration matches the reference stored in the Console. See Manage device credentials.

The run succeeded but no deviations appeared. Discovery found nothing that differs from NetBox, which is the healthy outcome. Confirm the run's results before assuming something is broken.

Nothing runs at all. Check that the Orb agents you selected are online. See Manage Orb agents.

What's next

• Review and resolve deviations
• Manage device credentials

Getting help

Contact your account team or NetBox Labs support.