The Connections tab on an asset summary has Internal and External views. The External view lists the external apps and third-party services the device communicates with outside your network.
To request access to asset connections, sign up for the Lansweeper beta program.
Overview
The External view shows the external apps and third-party services this device has communicated with, based on network traffic observed by a traffic sensor. Use it to see which external vendors an asset depends on and understand its exposure to third-party services.
This view is read-only. The data comes from a traffic sensor watching your network. For how that works, see Discover assets with the traffic sensor.
To review the assets this device communicates with inside your network, see View internal connections.
Viewing internal and external connections requires the View asset connections permission. Site admins have this permission by default.
Reading the connections table
Each row is an aggregation of network traffic between the selected asset (the asset whose summary you're viewing) and one external application, on a single port, and with a single role.
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Role | The selected asset's role in the connection: Client of (it started the communication), Server to (it responded to a request), or Unknown (the relationship couldn't be determined). |
| External application | The external app or service the asset connected to. |
| Vendor | The vendor of the external application. |
| Category | High-level classification of the external application. |
| Sub category | Finer classification of the external application. |
| Protocol | The protocol or service identified for the connection, such as HTTPS or SSH. |
| Port | The port used, such as 443/tcp. |
| First observed | The earliest date this connection was seen, to the day. |
| Last observed | The most recent date this connection was seen, to the day. |
| Connections sent | The number of TCP sessions or well-separated bursts of UDP traffic sent from this asset to the external application on the last observed date. |
| Connections received | The number of TCP sessions or well-separated bursts of UDP traffic sent from the external application to this asset on the last observed date. |
| Bytes sent | Total bytes sent for this connection on the last observed date. |
| Bytes received | Total bytes received for this connection on the last observed date. |
For bidirectional protocols (such as TCP or DNS over UDP) you should expect to see the same number of connections sent and received on a row.
When you don't see data
If the table is empty, one of the following usually applies.
No traffic sensor is set up. Traffic data requires a sensor. Set up a traffic sensor to see which external apps this device communicates with, how much traffic is flowing, and in which direction. See Set up traffic collection.
A sensor is active but hasn't seen this asset. The sensor is running but no recent network activity has been detected for this device. If you installed the sensor less than 24 hours ago, wait for the next data refresh. Otherwise, verify the sensor has visibility of this device's network segment.
A sensor is active and sees this asset, but no external connections. The sensor has observed traffic for this device, but none of it matches a known application in Lansweeper's external application whitelist. Connections to destinations that don't match a whitelist entry aren't shown.
Data freshness
A Last updated date at the top of the page shows when the connections data was last refreshed. This date appears even when there's no connection data to display. Connections are refreshed daily. If a connection wasn't seen on the day of the most recent refresh, the stats shown are from the most recent day that connection was observed.
Connections that have not been seen for 14 days are not retained or displayed.
How this data is collected
A traffic sensor passively observes network traffic and forwards connection metadata to your Lansweeper site. The traffic sensor captures metadata needed to identify assets and characterize the connections between them.
For what the sensor sees and doesn't see, where the data is stored, and how to control it, see Discover assets with the traffic sensor.