Cisco Meraki

A Cisco Meraki organization through the Dashboard API: devices that are offline, Internet uplinks of the MX routers that failed (and the failover to the other uplink), a license out of compliance or about to expire, and the number of clients per network.

Beta

This integration is written from Cisco’s Dashboard API documentation and has not been tested on real Meraki equipment. Every call is a read. Tell us what breaks.

DumbMonit uses the API key of an administrator who has read-only access to the organization. The key is sent as Authorization: Bearer, never in the URL. The monitor’s address is the API itself (api.meraki.com), not a device, so DumbMonit does not need to reach your sites.

Every minute DumbMonit reads two required pages — /api/v1/organizations and /api/v1/organizations/{id}/devices/statuses — and four optional ones that a narrower key, or another licensing model, may refuse without failing the rest: network names, uplinks/statuses, the license (licenses/overview, or the per-device licenses list for organizations on per-device licensing) and the clients seen in the last hour for each network.

Two behaviours of the API are handled for you. The dashboard answers some requests with a redirect (307) to the server that hosts the organization (n123.meraki.com): DumbMonit follows it, but only inside the Meraki domain, so the key never goes anywhere else. And the API allows 10 requests per second per organization: DumbMonit reads one page after the other and waits for the Retry-After of a 429 answer before trying again.

Network ports to open

From the DumbMonit server (or its relay agent) to the device:

Port	Protocol	Purpose
443	TCP	Meraki Dashboard API (HTTPS, api.meraki.com)

What it watches

All metrics are prefixed dumbmonit_meraki_.

Metric	Labels	Meaning
organization_info	organization, organization_id	Value 1.
devices	status	Devices by status: online, alerting, offline, dormant. Exact counts.
device_online	device, serial, model, product_type, network	1 when the device is online or alerting. Dormant devices have no per-device series.
device_offline	same	1 when the status is offline.
device_alerting	same	1 when the status is alerting (reachable, with a problem the dashboard flags).
device_last_report_age_seconds	same	Since the device last reported to the cloud.
uplink_up	device, serial, interface, network	1 when the uplink is active or ready.
uplink_failed	same	1 when the status is failed: a configured uplink that lost Internet. not connected (a socket without a cable, an empty cellular slot) is not a failure.
uplink_failover	device, serial, network	1 when the wan1 uplink failed and another one carries the traffic.
uplinks_failed		Count.
license_ok		1 when the license overview says OK. Co-termination licensing only.
license_status_info	status	Value 1.
license_expiry_seconds		Until the license expires; for per-device licensing, until the nearest expiry of the active licenses.
network_clients	network, network_id	Clients seen in the last hour (up to 1000 per network, 25 networks).
clients		Their sum.

At most 200 devices and 200 uplink entries are named per organization; the counts stay exact up to the 1000 devices one page returns.

The built-in rules that apply:

• Meraki device offline: offline for ten minutes (Advisory). Dormant devices are never reported.
• Meraki uplink failed: five minutes (Advisory).
• Meraki license problem: the license is not in compliance for an hour (Advisory, reminded daily).
• Meraki license expiring: less than 30 days left (Advisory, reminded daily).

The monitor page

The Cloud network panel says what is wrong in a sentence, shows the devices online, alerting and dormant, the clients and the license, then lists the devices offline or alerting and the uplinks that failed (with a note when the router already runs on its backup uplink).

Create a read-only API key for DumbMonit

1. In the Meraki dashboard, open Organization → Settings and tick Enable access to the Cisco Meraki Dashboard API.

2. Open Organization → Administrators → Add admin and create an administrator dedicated to DumbMonit, with Organization access set to Read-only.

   dumbmonit@example.com

3. Sign in as that administrator, open My profile → API access and click Generate new API key. Copy it: the dashboard shows it only once.

4. In DumbMonit, enter api.meraki.com as the address and paste the key as API key. Leave Organization empty to read the first organization the key sees.

Required permissions

• Organization access: Read-only — Lists devices, uplinks, licensing and clients, changes nothing

Warning

A dormant device (not seen for a long time) is counted but never reported as down, and a WAN socket without a cable is not a failed uplink: only an uplink that lost its Internet access is.

Vendor documentation: https://developer.cisco.com/meraki/api-v1/

Notes

• A key is tied to the administrator who generated it: if that account is removed or loses access, the monitor shows an authentication error.
• Other regions and the US government cloud use their own API host (api.meraki.cn, api.gov-meraki.com): enter it as the address.

Credentials

Credential	Fields
API key	The key generated under My profile → API access, sent as Authorization: Bearer.

Address: api.meraki.com (or the API host of your region). Options:

• Organization: the ID or the name of the organization to read; empty for the first one the key sees.
• Networks: comma-separated network names or IDs to watch; empty for every network. It restricts devices, uplinks and clients.
• Timeout per request (15 s).

Troubleshooting

“Meraki refused the API key (401)”: the key is wrong, was regenerated, or its administrator was removed.

“Meraki refused … (403)”: API access is not enabled for the organization (Organization → Settings), or the administrator has no access to it.

“The API key does not see an organization …”: the Organization option matches neither an ID nor a name the key can see.

No license figure: the key cannot read it, or the organization uses subscription licensing, which this version does not read.