This topic provides a quick introduction to setting up your SNMP Network Devices in Uptime Infrastructure Monitor as well as how to resolve common setup issues.
Adding your network devices to Uptime Infrastructure Monitor
The first step in setting up an SNMP device for monitoring within Uptime Infrastructure Monitor is to add the device to Uptime Infrastructure Monitor as an element. This is done from the My Infrastructure tab in the Uptime Infrastructure Monitor tool bar via the Add System/Network Device link in the tree panel on the left side of the screen. After clicking the link, the Add system dialogue will ask you for a display name and description for the device, which can be any text.
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- Net-SNMP V2 or Net-SNMP V3: these are typically used for servers that support the Net-SNMP protocol for gathering metrics related to CPU, Memory, Disk load, etc. as well as any additional metrics provided by OID.
- Network Device: this option is used for network devices such as switches, routers, SANs, firewalls, etc. that only provide metrics for OIDs appropriate to their functionality (e.g. port availability, network utilization, etc.). Also use this selection to add an SNMP v1 device.
For more details about SNMP and Uptime Infrastructure Monitor's SNMP support, please refer to SNMP-based Systems in the Uptime Infrastructure Monitor Administrator's Guide.
After selecting the appropriate device type for the element, provide the hostname or IP address and the SNMP connection details for the device / system. If the majority of the devices / systems share the same connection settings (ie. community string, port, etc.), it is recommended to enter these settings in the Global Element Settings page Credentials Settings page of the Uptime Infrastructure Monitor UI (Config -> Global Element Credentials Settings -> SNMP Global CredentialsConfiguration), so that the Use the Use Global SNMP Connection Configuration check box can be selected; otherwise, you will need to provide the connection details for each device / system.
The main options here are:
- SNMP Version:
- V1 (only available if you select Network Device in the Type of System/Device field) - an older, un-authenticated, un-encrypted version of SNMP.
- V2 - an un-authenticated, un-encrypted version of SNMP.
- V3 - a newer version of SNMP that provides for authentication and encryption of the transmitted data.
- SNMP Port: Default option is port 161 but may be set differently as required.
- Read Community: Default option is public but very likely need to be changed. The read community acts as a very basic password for controlling access to the SNMP data.
- SNMP V3 only: These options are only used if the device supports the newer encrypted version 3 of SNMP.
- Username.
- Authentication Password.
- Authentication Method.
- Privacy Password.
- Privacy Type.
If you are uncertain of which SNMP values to select for the device / system, the following areas may be helpful to check:
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- Request seems to time-out when setting up the device.
- Check that the port and read community are correct.
- Error: Can't load required RFC1213 MIB data.
- This error means that the device doesn't support the RFC1213 MIB, which is required for net-snmp support. Try setting it up as a network device instead.
Setting up a Service Monitor for the device's OIDs
Because the device / system is an element in Uptime Infrastructure Monitor, a service monitor can be created to poll the results of specific OIDs (Object Identifier). An OID is a numerical identifier for one specific statistic or metric that is available from the device. These OIDs combine with a MIB (Management Information Base), which defines and describes the possible values for this metric.
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If there are no OIDs present for the vendor or the particular device, additional MIBs can be obtained from the vendor directly and loaded into Uptime Infrastructure Monitor. This step is done on the monitoring station by placing the files in the <uptime_dir>/mibs/ directory, and restarting the up.time Uptime Data Collector (or uptime_core on Linux / Unix platforms) service to refresh the MIB cache. See Adding MIBs to Uptime Infrastructure Monitor for further details.
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