Werk #19971: Network interface discovery: New 'Use name' appearance option
| Component | Checks & agents | ||
| Title | Network interface discovery: New 'Use name' appearance option | ||
| Date | May 13, 2026 | ||
| Level | Trivial Change | ||
| Class | New Feature | ||
| Compatibility | Compatible - no manual interaction needed | ||
| Checkmk versions & editions |
|
The discovery ruleset Network interfaces and switch ports now offers a fourth value for the option Appearance of network interface (and the equivalent option for group members): Use name. The existing values Use index, Use description and Use alias are unchanged, and Use index remains the default.
When Use name is selected, Checkmk uses the interface's name
attribute as the service item. For SNMP-based interface checks this is
the ifName OID — the short, technical interface name (e.g.
port1.5), distinct from ifDescr (long description) and ifAlias
(user-defined alias).
name is now a first-class field on interface data: the shared if64
parser used by most SNMP interface checks fetches ifName by default
and populates the new attribute, so the option works out of the box on
every device handled by if64 and its derivatives.
When changing the option, services need to be rediscovered to apply the new naming.