Geneos - How to monitor SNMP devices with the MIB Monitor plugin?

Verification of Network Connection and Permission

The SNMP protocol is commonly available for a wide range of equipment like servers, storage, printers, network devices, etc. User should check the documentation from the vendor of the SNMP device on the supported protocol versions (e.g. v1, v2c, v3) and security mechanisms (e.g. community string, authentication and privacy options).

While each SNMP device may have some unique features, they should include certain attributes under object identifiers (OID: .1.3.6.1.2.1) following industry standards. We can make use of the "snmpwalk" command, which is often installed on Linux systems. Please see below command line examples for SNMP v2c and v3, which should output a list of OIDs if it is successful.

Example 1: SNMP v2c with community string

$ snmpwalk -v 2c -c public -O n 10.20.34.56 .1.3.6.1.2.1 | head

Example 2: SNMP v3 with authentication and privacy enabled

$ snmpwalk -v 3 -l authPriv -u geneosuser -a sha -A authPass -x aes -X privPass 10.20.34.56 .1.3.6.1.2.1 | head

MIB Monitor Plugin Configuration

Once the SNMP security has been tested with the "snmpwalk" command, the configurations in Geneos become much more straight-forward. Users can locate the respective options under the Advanced tab in the MIB-Mon plugin.

As OIDs usually start with a long common string (e.g. .1.3.6.1.2.1.1.), there is a "Mib Base" option so users can save some typing.

Further Reading

• MIB-Mon plugin documentation
• Simple Network Management Protocol in Wikipedia