O'Reilly logo

Stay ahead with the world's most comprehensive technology and business learning platform.

With Safari, you learn the way you learn best. Get unlimited access to videos, live online training, learning paths, books, tutorials, and more.

Start Free Trial

No credit card required

Essential SNMP

Essential SNMP

by Kevin Schmidt, Douglas Mauro
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Release Date: July 2001
ISBN: 0596000200
View table of contents
Start reading

Book Description

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet-standard protocol for managing hosts on an IP network. Devices that typically support SNMP include routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, modem racks, UPSs, and more. Essential SNMP is a practical introduction to SNMP for network and system administrators. It starts with the basics of SNMP and how it works, along with the technical background to use it effectively. The book covers OIDs, MIBs, community strings, traps, and other technical elements. But the main focus is on practical network administration: how to configure SNMP agents and network management stations, how to use SNMP to retrieve and modify variables on network devices, how to configure management software to react to traps sent by managed devices. Essential SNMP explores both commercial and open source packages, including HP's OpenView, Castle Rock's SNMPc, the Net-SNMP tools, Simon Leinen's Perl SNMP support, and MRTG. Administrators will come away with ideas for writing scripts to help them manage their networks, create managed objects, and extend the operation of SNMP agents. In addition to SNMPv1 and v2, the book covers SNMPv3, which has just started to appear in commercial products as of this printing.

Table of Contents

  1. Essential SNMP
    1. Preface
      1. Audience for This Book
      2. Organization
      3. Example Programs
      4. Conventions Used in This Book
      5. Comments and Questions
      6. Acknowledgments
        1. Douglas
        2. Kevin
    2. 1. What Is SNMP?
      1. Network Management and Monitoring
        1. Before and After SNMP
        2. Human Considerations
      2. RFCs and SNMP Versions
      3. Managers and Agents
      4. The Structure of Management Information and MIBS
      5. Host Management
      6. A Brief Introduction to Remote Monitoring (RMON)
      7. Getting More Information
    3. 2. A Closer Look at SNMP
      1. SNMP and UDP
      2. SNMP Communities
      3. The Structure of Management Information
        1. Naming OIDs
        2. Defining OIDs
      4. Extensions to the SMI in Version 2
      5. A Closer Look at MIB-II
      6. SNMP Operations
        1. The get Operation
        2. The get-next Operation
        3. The get-bulk Operation
        4. The set Operation
        5. get, get-next, get-bulk, and set Error Responses
        6. SNMP Traps
        7. SNMP Notification
        8. SNMP inform
        9. SNMP report
      7. Host Management Revisited
      8. Remote Monitoring Revisited
    4. 3. NMS Architectures
      1. Hardware Considerations
      2. NMS Architectures
      3. A Look Ahead
    5. 4. SNMP-Compatible Hardware
      1. What Does SNMP-Compatible Really Mean?
      2. Is My Device SNMP-Compatible?
      3. Upgrading Your Hardware
      4. In the End
      5. A Look Ahead
    6. 5. Network-Management Software
      1. SNMP Agents
        1. HP Extensible SNMP Agent
        2. Sun Microsystems
        3. Concord SystemEDGE
        4. Microsoft
        5. Net-SNMP (Formerly the UCD-SNMP project.)
        6. SNMP Research
      2. NMS Suites
        1. HP OpenView NNM
        2. HP OpenView ITO
        3. Tivoli Netview
        4. Castle Rock SNMPc
        5. BMC
        6. Computer Associates Unicenter TNG Framework
        7. Veritas NerveCenter
        8. OpenRiver
        9. GxSNMP
        10. Tkined
        11. OpenNMS
      3. Element Managers (Vendor-Specific Management)
        1. Sun Management Center
        2. CiscoWorks 2000
        3. 3Com Total Control
        4. Aprisma (Formerly Spectrum for Cabletron hardware.)
      4. Trend Analysis
        1. Concord eHealth
        2. Trinagy (Formerly DeskTalk Systems, Inc.) TREND
        3. MRTG
        4. Cricket
        5. InfoVista
      5. Supporting Software
        1. Perl
        2. SNMP Support for Perl
        3. WILMA
        4. Net-SNMP C Library
        5. Net-SNMP Perl Module
        6. A3Com
        7. SNMP++
        8. Netcool
        9. Network Computing Technologies Trap Receiver
    7. 6. Configuring Your NMS
      1. HP’s OpenView Network Node Manager
        1. Running NNM
        2. The netmon Process
        3. Configuring Polling Intervals
        4. A Few Words About NNM Map Colors
        5. Using OpenView Filters
          1. Sets
          2. Filters
          3. FilterExpressions
        6. Loading MIBs into OpenView
      2. Castle Rock’s SNMPc Enterprise Edition
        1. SNMPc’s Map
        2. Discovery and Filters
        3. Loading MIBs into SNMPc
    8. 7. Configuring SNMP Agents
      1. Parameter Settings
      2. Security Concerns
      3. Agent Configuration Walkthroughs
        1. Windows 95/98 Agent
        2. Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 Agent
        3. HP OpenView Agent for HP-UX and Solaris
          1. Simple configuration
          2. Advanced configuration
        4. Net-SNMP (Formerly UCD-SNMP)
          1. Running the configuration script
          2. Creating a configuration by hand
        5. Concord SystemEDGE Agent for Unix and NT
          1. Simple configuration
          2. Advanced configuration
        6. Cisco Devices
          1. Simple configuration
          2. Advanced configuration
        7. APC Symetra
    9. 8. Polling and Setting
      1. Retrieving a Single MIB Value
        1. Using HP OpenView to Retrieve Values
        2. Using Net-SNMP
      2. Retrieving Multiple MIB Values
        1. Walking the MIB Tree with OpenView
        2. Walking the Tree with Net-SNMP
      3. Setting a MIB Value
      4. Error Responses
    10. 9. Polling and Thresholds
      1. Internal Polling
        1. Remote Monitoring (RMON)
          1. RMON configuration
      2. External Polling
        1. Collecting and Displaying Data with OpenView
        2. OpenView Graphing
        3. OpenView Data Collection and Thresholds
          1. Designing collections
          2. Creating a threshold
        4. Castle Rock’s SNMPc
        5. Open Source Tools for Data Collection and Graphing
    11. 10. Traps
      1. Understanding Traps
        1. SNMPv2 Traps
      2. Receiving Traps
        1. HP OpenView
        2. Using NNM’s Event Configurations
          1. Selecting event sources
          2. Setting event categories
          3. Forwarding events and event severities
          4. Log messages, notifications, and automatic actions
        3. Custom Event Categories
        4. The Event Categories Display
        5. The Alarm Browser
        6. Creating Events Within OpenView
        7. Monitoring Traps with Perl
        8. Using the Network Computing Technologies Trap Receiver
        9. Receiving Traps Using Net-SNMP
      3. Sending Traps
        1. Sending Traps with OpenView
        2. Sending Traps with Perl
        3. Sending Traps with Network Computing Technologies Trap Generator
        4. Sending Traps with Net-SNMP
        5. Forcing Your Hardware to Generate Traps
        6. Using Hooks with Your Programs
    12. 11. Extensible SNMP Agents
      1. Net-SNMP
      2. SystemEDGE
        1. Extensibility for Unix and Windows NT
        2. Added Extensibility for Windows NT
      3. OpenView’s Extensible Agent
        1. Tables
    13. 12. Adapting SNMP to Fit Your Environment
      1. General Trap-Generation Program
      2. Who’s Logging into My Machine? (I-Am-in)
      3. Throw Core
      4. Veritas Disk Check
      5. Disk-Space Checker
      6. Port Monitor
    14. 13. MRTG
      1. Using MRTG
      2. Viewing Graphs
      3. Graphing Other Objects
      4. Other Data-Gathering Applications
      5. Pitfalls
      6. Getting Help
    15. A. Using Input and Output Octets
    16. B. More on OpenView’s NNM
      1. Using External Data
      2. Adding a Menu to NNM
      3. Profiles for Different Users
      4. Using NNM for Communications
    17. C. Net-SNMP Tools
      1. Net-SNMP and MIB Files
      2. Common Command-Line Arguments
      3. Net-SNMP Command-Line Tools
        1. snmpwalk
        2. snmpget
        3. snmpbulkget
        4. snmpbulkwalk
        5. snmpset
        6. snmptrap
        7. snmpdelta
        8. snmpdf
        9. snmpgetnext
        10. snmpstatus
        11. snmptable
        12. snmpusm
        13. snmpconf
        14. snmpinform
        15. snmptranslate
    18. D. SNMP RFCs
      1. SMIv1 Data Definition Language
      2. SMIv2 Data Definition Language
      3. SNMPv1 Protocol
      4. SNMPv2 Protocol
      5. SNMPv3 Protocol
      6. SNMP Agent Extensibility
      7. SMIv1 MIB Modules
      8. SMIv2 MIB Modules
      9. IANA-Maintained MIB Modules
      10. Related Documents
    19. E. SNMP Support for Perl
      1. MIB Management Routines
        1. snmpmapOID( )
        2. snmpMIB_to_OID( )
        3. snmpLoad_OID_Cache( )
        4. snmpQueue_MIB_File( )
      2. SNMP Operations
        1. snmpget( )
        2. snmpgetnext( )
        3. snmpwalk( )
        4. snmpset( )
        5. snmptrap( )
    20. F. SNMPv3
      1. Changes in SNMPv3
        1. The SNMPv3 Engine
        2. SNMPv3 Applications
        3. What Does an Entity Look Like?
        4. SNMPv3 Textual Conventions
      2. Configuring SNMPv3
        1. Configuring SNMPv3 for a Cisco Router
        2. Configuring SNMPv3 for Net-SNMP
          1. Using snmpusm to manage users
          2. Simplifying commands by setting defaults
          3. Sending SNMPv3 traps with Net-SNMP
      3. Final Words on SNMPv3
    21. Index
    22. Colophon