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.
SettingsNetCrunch SystemAtlasCustom Node Tools
Monitoring tells you a node is in trouble; fixing it usually means reaching for something else — a remote desktop client, a vendor's management utility, an internal script. Custom Node Tools put those commands on the node menu itself, launched against the node you are looking at.
The command runs locally, on the machine where the Desktop Console is running. Nothing is executed on the NetCrunch server or on the monitored node.
Defining a Tool
- Name
- The text shown in the menu.
- Command
- The command, executable, or script to run.
- Command Parameters
- The arguments passed to it. This is where the node's own data goes — see below.
- Run as administrator
- Runs the command elevated. Tools defined this way are marked with a shield in the menu.
- Node Filter
- Which nodes the tool is offered for — All Nodes, Windows, Single Node, or Node Group. Choosing Single Node or Node Group then asks you which.
node-placeholders
Passing Node Data to the Command
The parameters field is not plain text. Node values are inserted as placeholders, which appear as labeled tokens in the field and are replaced with that node's values when the tool runs.
Press Ctrl+Space in the parameters field, or use the field's + button, and pick from:
- DNS Name
- The node's name.
- IP Address
- The node's address.
- MAC Address
- The node's hardware address.
- Identification
- Whichever of the two identifies this node - its address or its name. Which one is used follows the node's own properties, so a tool built on this placeholder addresses each node the way NetCrunch identifies it, instead of assuming every node is reachable by name or every node by address.
There is no substitution syntax to memorise and nothing to type. You insert a placeholder and it becomes a token in the field, mixed freely with literal text — so a parameters field reading -v [IP Address] --label [DNS Name] passes the address and name of whichever node the tool was launched from.
How Tools Appear in the Menu
The node menu adapts to how many tools apply to the node you clicked:
- Fewer than three — listed inline on the menu
- Three or more — collected under a Custom Tools submenu
Tools run against one node at a time. There is no multi-selection.
Custom tools are offered only for IP nodes in the server's own address space. They do not appear on nodes monitored through a remote monitoring probe, nor on cloud services or other non-IP nodes.
The reason is physical rather than a limitation of the feature: the command runs on the machine where the Desktop Console is running, so the console has to be able to reach the node itself.