Essential SNMP, 2nd Edition

Castle Rock's SNMPc Enterprise Edition

We'll end the chapter with a brief discussion of Castle Rock's SNMPc, Version 7.0, which runs on Microsoft Windows.^[†] SNMPc is a simpler product than OpenView in many respects. However, even though it's simpler, it's far from featureless. It's also cheaper than OpenView, which makes it ideal for shops that don't have a lot of money to spend on an NMS platform but need the support and backing that a commercial product provides.

Installation of SNMPc is straightforward. The installer asks for the license number and a discovery seed device. The seed device is similar to a seed file for OpenView's netmon. In the case of SNMPc, we recommend giving it the IP address (or hostname) of your gateway since this device can be used to discover other segments of your network. The installer gives you the option (checkbox) of turning on or off the discovery during the initial start. Bigger networks might opt to deactivate the initial discovery to prevent a flood of requests (and maybe auth failures).

SNMPc's Map

Once SNMPc is up and running, you will see any devices it has discovered in the Root map view. Figure 5-8 shows the main button bar. The far-right button (the house) gets you to the highest level on the map. The zooming tools allow you to pan in and out of the map, increasing or decreasing the amount of detail it shows. You can also reach the Root submap by selecting View → Map View → Root Submap.

Figure 5-8. SNMPc main button bar

Discovery ...