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Vincent_Oomen
Engaged Sweeper
Hi,

We have some assets which we added manually. But somehow, the assets are merged with other assets, but the comments states:

[MERGE] Merged duplicate asset with IP address 172.17.40.188 into this asset. Merge reason: shared MAC address(es) and unknown serial number for both assets.


But the asset has an unique MAC, and even the serialnumber is different. And still, the assets are getting merged. What is happening here?

We use LanSweeper:
Website Version: 10.2.0.0
Scan-server 10.2.0.0
SQL server: localhost\SQLLANSWEEPER
Chrome 103
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
HoneyBadger
Lansweeper Alumni

Lansweeper uses the MAC address as the unique identifier for non-Windows assets. If the MAC address is not available, the IP address will be used instead. More information on this unique identifier can be found in the following knowledgebase article: https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/how-lansweeper-uniquely-identifies-assets/

When saving the scanned information in the database, Lansweeper will first check if this unique identifier already exists. If this is the case, the existing asset will be updated and if not, the new asset will be added. Do note that Lansweeper compares all MAC addresses for both assets (meaning also for linked components). If there's a match for any of them, the assets will merge and the newly scanned data will update the existing asset. When a merge occurs this should be visible in the Comments tab of the asset. We assume you've redacted your comment as the shared MAC address(es) should be listed in the comment as per the example below.

HoneyBadger_0-1657727878372.png

As seen in the screenshot above, we very recently added an additional check on the serial number as well. It is worth noting that only the scanned serial numbers are compared, so a merge will only occur if the existing and scanned asset share the exact same serial number. If no serial numbers are detected or if a serial was only detected for one of the assets (existing or scanned), no merge will occur and the logic will revert to MAC-based merging which seems to be the case here. Important note: manually editing the serial in the web console, will not affect this new merge logic. 

There is a workaround for these merges by adding the affected MAC address(es) to an internal list in the Lansweeper database (tsysMacBlacklist). Adding the common MAC Address(es) to tsysMacBlacklist will prevent Lansweeper from using the common MAC address(es) to uniquely identify assets and will allow both assets to be added to the database.

To blacklist a shared MAC address you can execute the below script. Replace the highlighted parts of the code with the MAC address that you would like to exclude and you can also give it a more meaningful exclusion name. To execute scripts you can make use of the DatabaseMaintenance tool, which can be found under Program Files (x86)\Lansweeper\Tools on your Lansweeper server. Note that as this is a database script, just to be safe, we suggest taking a back-up of your database as described in the following article: https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/backing-up-your-installation/

INSERT INTO tsysMacBlacklist (Mac, Comment) VALUES ('AA:BB:CC:00:11:22', 'Exclusion name')
GO
UPDATE tsysupdate SET MacBlacklist = GETDATE()

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3
Bowser
Engaged Sweeper II

Just had this issue with several UPS devices.

Each UPS had two MAC addresses eth0 and usb0 and each interface had an IP address.

For each UPS the eth0 was pingable and had a different MAC address then the other UPSs.

Turns out that all the UPS usb0 MAC and IP addresses were the same, even though it wasn't hooked up.

The UPSs are being scanned with SNMPv3 and the Serial Number is not coming with the scan.

I tried manually adding the Serial Number but devices were still merging. Wish Lansweeper didn't merge devices with manually edited SN. 

I added the usb0 MAC address to the blacklist and fixed the merging issues.

beacampos
Lansweeper Employee
Lansweeper Employee

hi, @Vincent_Oomen , if this reply solves your query, don't forget to Mark the reply as a solution - this will help our Community become even more valuable to others, since they will quickly know that your post has a valid solution 🙂 Thank you!

HoneyBadger
Lansweeper Alumni

Lansweeper uses the MAC address as the unique identifier for non-Windows assets. If the MAC address is not available, the IP address will be used instead. More information on this unique identifier can be found in the following knowledgebase article: https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/how-lansweeper-uniquely-identifies-assets/

When saving the scanned information in the database, Lansweeper will first check if this unique identifier already exists. If this is the case, the existing asset will be updated and if not, the new asset will be added. Do note that Lansweeper compares all MAC addresses for both assets (meaning also for linked components). If there's a match for any of them, the assets will merge and the newly scanned data will update the existing asset. When a merge occurs this should be visible in the Comments tab of the asset. We assume you've redacted your comment as the shared MAC address(es) should be listed in the comment as per the example below.

HoneyBadger_0-1657727878372.png

As seen in the screenshot above, we very recently added an additional check on the serial number as well. It is worth noting that only the scanned serial numbers are compared, so a merge will only occur if the existing and scanned asset share the exact same serial number. If no serial numbers are detected or if a serial was only detected for one of the assets (existing or scanned), no merge will occur and the logic will revert to MAC-based merging which seems to be the case here. Important note: manually editing the serial in the web console, will not affect this new merge logic. 

There is a workaround for these merges by adding the affected MAC address(es) to an internal list in the Lansweeper database (tsysMacBlacklist). Adding the common MAC Address(es) to tsysMacBlacklist will prevent Lansweeper from using the common MAC address(es) to uniquely identify assets and will allow both assets to be added to the database.

To blacklist a shared MAC address you can execute the below script. Replace the highlighted parts of the code with the MAC address that you would like to exclude and you can also give it a more meaningful exclusion name. To execute scripts you can make use of the DatabaseMaintenance tool, which can be found under Program Files (x86)\Lansweeper\Tools on your Lansweeper server. Note that as this is a database script, just to be safe, we suggest taking a back-up of your database as described in the following article: https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/backing-up-your-installation/

INSERT INTO tsysMacBlacklist (Mac, Comment) VALUES ('AA:BB:CC:00:11:22', 'Exclusion name')
GO
UPDATE tsysupdate SET MacBlacklist = GETDATE()