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Trace client devices in topology view

Now you can see which Cisco Meraki devices a client is connected to and how those devices are physically linked.

For those of you who have been checking out our awesome, new network topology feature, we’re excited to announce additional functionality: tracing client devices in the Cisco Meraki dashboard’s topology view. This lets you see exactly what Meraki equipment a device is connected through—all the way out to the perimeter of your network. When troubleshooting client connectivity in complex deployments, the topology feature can save time by quickly showing whether networked devices between the client and the Internet are alerting or down.

Tracing clients in the Meraki topology map is easy: from within the dashboard, you can drill down into a client’s details page and click on the “topology” link:

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This will bring up the network topology view, with Meraki devices highlighted by green icons. Below, you can see that the Windows client device in our example is connected to an access point that physically links back through four switches before hitting our MX security appliance, Godzilla:

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If device labeling is checked, it’s easy to confirm that the AP highlighted in the topology view is the same as that identified in the client’s details page.

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Another way to trace a client device is to simply search for its MAC address from the dashboard’s topology page. In the example above, the client’s MAC address is being filtered in the topology search box—resulting in a single online device matching the criteria. You can also search by partial MAC addresses:

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In the image above, searching on a partial MAC address revealed three online devices matching that search criteria.

So, in seconds, it’s possible to view the networked Meraki devices a client connects through—and easily verify the health and status of those devices. Depending on the complexity and size of a network deployment, this can save significant troubleshooting time.

For more information about our network topology feature, please check out our blog post.