This article briefly goes over some basic tools available to help discover an Ouster Sensor on your network.

Command Line Tools

Linux

avahi-browse:

• This is a tool built into Ubuntu to help find mDNS (multicast Domain Name System) services that are on your network.

• Example usage

  • avahi-browse -lrt _roger._tcp

    • NOTE: Ouster sensors advertise on mDNS with the service type _roger._tcp. So this command tells avahi-browse to resolve all services of type _roger._tcp. Any sensors that you have connected on any interface will report back their hostnames, IPv6 and IPv4 addresses, as well as a text field with sensor information (serial number, part number, etc)

ping6:

• This is a ping tool for IPv6 addresses

• Example usage:

  • ping6 fe80::be0f:a7ff:fe00:65%<interface>

    • fe80 is the link-local prefix

    • be0f:a7ff:fe00:65 is a unique value based on the MAC address of the sensor.

    • <interface> is the Linux name of the interface the sensor is on. i.e. eth0

    • Don’t forget that % between the address and the <interface>

curl:

• curl (client URL) is a tool for accessing data via URLs

• The Ouster Sensors host a web server that can be queried with curl

• Example usage for IPv6 link-local:

  • curl -6 "[fe80::be0f:a7ff:fe00:65%eth0]/api/v1/system/network" | jq -S

nmcli:

• nmcli (Network Manager Command-Line) is a tool to show connections and devices on your machine.

  • nmcli conn show

    • shows connections

  • nmcli conn dev

    • shows devices

macOS/Windows

dns-sd:

• This tool work similar to avahi-browse on Linux but is for macOS

• Example usage

  • dns-sd -B _services._dns-sd._udp

    • Browses a list of all services on the network including Ouster sensors

  • dns-sd -B <Service Type>

    • <Service Type> for our sensors is _roger._tcp

    • Browses a list of sensors on your network

  • dns-sd -L "<Instance Name>" <Service Type>

    • Resolves information about a specific sensor name <Instance Name>

Python

Python socket library:

• Can quickly get the IPv6 and IPv4 addresses of a sensor from its hostname

• Example terminal usage:

  • python3, starts a Python 3 interpreter

  • In the Python 3 Interpreter use these commands:

    • import socket socket.getaddrinfo( '<hostname>', <port_number>) # set <port_number> to 0 to search all ports

    • Example output below:

python-zeroconf:

• This is a multicast DNS Service Discovery tool for Python

• Install command:

  • pip install zeroconf

pyinstaller:

• PyInstaller freezes (packages) Python applications into stand-alone executables, under Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris and AIX.

• Install command:

  • pip install pyinstaller

• Example usage:

  • pyinstaller yourprogram.py

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