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NMIS has two different location attributes.  "location" and "sysLocation" .  NMIS and the OMK apps also make use of the Location Locations table.  So what are all these location attributes.?

sysLocation

This is the default location information you see in most places when you have done no configuration associated with locations in NMIS.  sysLocation is an attribute we collect for almost all devices using SNMP.  A device such as a router may have it's location configured so that when NMIS queries the device's "MIB-2 SYSTEM" mib it returns the sysLocation string.  If the device has no location information configured then this will return as "default".

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The "location" device attribute is the name of an entry in NMIS's "Locations" table.  You use the Locations table to create a set of location information which NMIS and OMK apps then use for geographic data such as GeoCodable locations for Geographic maps.  You associated associate a device to one of the locations in the table, this can be done through the gui by editing the devices "Location" entry which is a drop down of the available locations in the Locations table.  It is also possible to import devices with their location by providing a "location" attribute in the import csv or directly in the Nodes.nmis file.

Using location vs sysLocation

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You can change how NMIS uses location information, in older versions this is a little more involved in newer versions it is much simpler.

See here for updating your OMK applications such as opCharts, opEvents etc

Updating NMIS version 8.6.1 and newer to location vs sysLocation

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# new configuration option to have a configurable field to use for location, e.g. sysLocation or location. currently set to sysLocation change to
'location_field_name' => 'location’,  
# changed from 'sysLocation'
 
#have location attribute included in node summary information
'node_summary_field_list' => 'host,uuid,customer,businessService,serviceStatus,snmpdown,wmidown,remote_connection_name,remote_connection_url,host_addr,location',
#Note location has been added to the end of the list.
'network_viewNode_field_list' => 'status,outage,sysName,host_addr,group,customer,location,businessService,serviceStatus,nodeType,nodeModel,polling_policy,sysUpTime,sysContact,sysDescr,ifNumber,lastUpdate,nodeVendor,sysObjectName,roleType,netType',    
## delete just 'sysLocation' from this list 

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