Network Management

NetPath Services - Video

Learn how to use NetPath to discover and troubleshoot your network paths hop-by-hop – not just the part of the network that you manage, but also nodes and links of your providers.

First published date

10/24/2018 11:50 AM

Last published date

2/4/2026 12:37 AM

Overview

This article tackles the information about the NPM feature, NetPath that was introduced since NPM 12.0

Product section

Network Performance Monitor

Resolution



NetPath allows you to discover and troubleshoot network paths hop-by-hop – not just the part of the network that you manage, but also nodes and links of your providers.


​NetPath:

  • Creates a detailed (potentially multi-path) map between a Windows node and a destination you specify.
  • Overlays the path with performance metrics and device details of the nodes, interfaces, and connectors it finds.
  • Quickly identifies problem areas, and you can hover over objects to see more details using the Object Inspector, or drill down on managed nodes.

 

Notes:

  • You must open certain ports on your firewall for network connectivity used by NetPath. For more information, see the NetPath requirements topic in the NPM Administrator Guide.

  • NTA 4.2 and NCM 7.4.1 are the minimum required versions to use the Orion integration features with NetPath.

Create a NetPath 

In this scenario, SalesForce has been slow, and you want to analyze the path to find out where the problem is.

  1. Click My Dashboards > Network > NetPath Services.
  2. If this is your first time using NetPath, you’ll see an introductory wizard that shows how NetPath works. Otherwise, click Create New Service.
  3. In the Hostname field, enter login.salesforce.com, and in the Port field, enter 80.
  4. Enter Salesforce as the alias.
  5. Set the Probing Internal to 10 minutes, and click Next.

    Probing frequency determines how often Orion discovers the path and measures the path's performance.

 

  1. Assign a probe to the path.
    • The Orion main polling engine includes a probe you can use, or you can add a probe to a Windows device.
  2. Click Create.
    • It takes the system at least the probing interval to map the path.

Troubleshoot with NetPath 

Once NetPath maps the path, you can see your internal network, traversed segments of ISP network(s), and the destination network, plus the details and statuses of the objects on the route.

 

You can use the controls in the top left of the page to zoom in and out, and to control the level of detail shown. The path between SolarWinds’ Austin HQ and SalesForce shows the maximum level of detail.

 

NetPath monitors paths at regular intervals (the probing interval) and keeps historical data, which is shown in the Path History section at the bottom of the page. You can see in this example that the path is fine now, but was red a few intervals ago.

 

Click the red bar to see the path at that time.

 

Notice that the path is different during this time period than the current time. That’s normal. Paths can and do change over time.

 

If you look closely at the red object, you can see that it’s actually two objects.

 

Double-click on the object to expand it.

 

If you single-click on the individual device that’s causing the problem, the Object Inspector opens.

 

It looks like this device had high packet loss during this 10 minute time period, but the problem seems to be resolved. If you had caught this while it was happening, the information in the Object Inspector would allow you to contact the device’s owner and report the problem. And because NetPath keeps a history of each path, you can identify trends over time, and troubleshoot intermittent problems.

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