Introduction

SNMP is the Simple Network Management Protocol. You'll find it on the more expensive routers, switches, and gadgets. It can allow you to keep an eye on various machines with tools like Nagios and Cacti. Watch for spikes of network activity, see how much memory is used in a day's time, or do some customization and compare spams to hams.

A workstation can be watched, too. And that's what I hope to show here.

I'm assuming you have a Dapper or Feisty release of Ubuntu, or something similar. This isn't an involved project, it's just hard to find a basic installation technique in one place. It's hoped for this to be your starting point with SNMP, not an ending point.

Installing the software

rocommunity public

Note:

SNMPDOPTS='-Lsd -Lf /dev/null -u snmp -g snmp -I -smux -p /var/run/snmpd.pid 127.0.0.1'

SNMPDOPTS='-Lsd -Lf /dev/null -u snmp -g snmp -I -smux -p /var/run/snmpd.pid'

Downloading the Mibs

$ sudo apt-get install snmp-mibs-downloader

At that point you must edit /etc/snmp/snmp.conf and comment out the one uncommented line.

#
# As the snmp packages come without MIB files due to license reasons, loading
# of MIBs is disabled by default. If you added the MIBs you can reenable
# loaging them by commenting out the following line.
mibs :

Lastly, you will need to edit the /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf file that restricts you to only the system mib.

rocommunity public  default    -V systemonly

becomes

rocommunity public 172.16.0.0/20

Or whatever is appropriate for your environment.

Testing

snmpwalk -c public -v1 localhost | less

Security

Credits


SNMPAgent (last edited 2013-07-01 20:15:41 by mail)