SNMPCMD(1) Net-SNMP SNMPCMD(1)NAMEsnmpcmd - options and behaviour common to most of the Net-SNMP command-
line tools
SYNOPSISsnmpcmd [OPTIONS] AGENT [PARAMETERS]
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes the common options for the SNMP commands:
snmpbulkget, snmpbulkwalk, snmpdelta, snmpget, snmpgetnext, snmpnet‐
stat, snmpset, snmpstatus, snmptable, snmptest, snmptrap, snmpdf, snm‐
pusm , snmpwalk . The command line applications use the SNMP protocol
to communicate with an SNMP capable network entity, an agent. Individ‐
ual applications typically (but not necessarily) take additional param‐
eters that are given after the agent specification. These parameters
are documented in the manual pages for each application.
OPTIONS
-3[MmKk] 0xHEXKEY
Sets the keys to be used for SNMPv3 transactions. These options
allow you to set the master authentication and encryption keys
(-3m and -3M respectively) or set the localized authentication
and encryption keys (-3k and -3K respectively). SNMPv3 keys can
be either passed in by hand using these flags, or by the use of
keys generated from passwords using the -A and -X flags dis‐
cussed below. For further details on SNMPv3 and its usage of
keying information, see the Net-SNMP tutorial web site (
http://www.Net-SNMP.org/tutorial-5/commands/ ). Overrides the
defAuthMasterKey (-3m), defPrivMasterKey (-3M), defAuthLocal‐
izedKey (-3k) or defPrivLocalizedKey (-3K) tokens, respectively,
in the snmp.conf file, see snmp.conf(5).
-a authProtocol
Set the authentication protocol (MD5 or SHA) used for authenti‐
cated SNMPv3 messages. Overrides the defAuthType token in the
snmp.conf file.
-A authPassword
Set the authentication pass phrase used for authenticated SNMPv3
messages. Overrides the defAuthPassphrase token in the
snmp.conf file. It is insecure to specify pass phrases on the
command line, see snmp.conf(5).
-c community
Set the community string for SNMPv1/v2c transactions. Overrides
the defCommunity token in the snmp.conf file.
-d Dump (in hexadecimal) the raw SNMP packets sent and received.
-D TOKEN[,...]
Turn on debugging output for the given TOKEN(s). Try ALL for
extremely verbose output.
-e engineID
Set the authoritative (security) engineID used for SNMPv3
REQUEST messages. It is typically not necessary to specify
this, as it will usually be discovered automatically.
-E engineID
Set the context engineID used for SNMPv3 REQUEST messages scope‐
dPdu. If not specified, this will default to the authoritative
engineID.
-h, --help
Display a brief usage message and then exit.
-H Display a list of configuration file directives understood by
the command and then exit.
-I [brRhu]
Specifies input parsing options. See INPUT OPTIONS below.
-l secLevel
Set the securityLevel used for SNMPv3 messages (noAuthNo‐
Priv|authNoPriv|authPriv). Appropriate pass phrase(s) must pro‐
vided when using any level higher than noAuthNoPriv. Overrides
the defSecurityLevel token in the snmp.conf file.
-L [eEfFoOsS]
Specifies output logging options. See LOGGING OPTIONS below.
-m MIBLIST
Specifies a colon separated list of MIB modules (not files) to
load for this application. This overrides (or augments) the
environment variable MIBS, the snmp.conf directive mibs, and the
list of MIBs hardcoded into the Net-SNMP library.
If MIBLIST has a leading '-' or '+' character, then the MIB mod‐
ules listed are loaded in addition to the default list, coming
before or after this list respectively. Otherwise, the speci‐
fied MIBs are loaded instead of this default list.
The special keyword ALL is used to load all MIB modules in the
MIB directory search list. Every file whose name does not begin
with "." will be parsed as if it were a MIB file.
-M DIRLIST
Specifies a colon separated list of directories to search for
MIBs. This overrides (or augments) the environment variable
MIBDIRS, the snmp.conf directive mibdirs, and the default direc‐
tory hardcoded into the Net-SNMP library (/usr/share/snmp/mibs).
If DIRLIST has a leading '-' or '+' character, then the given
directories are added to the default list, being searched before
or after the directories on this list respectively. Otherwise,
the specified directories are searched instead of this default
list.
Note that the directories appearing later in the list have have
precedence over earlier ones. To avoid searching any MIB direc‐
tories, set the MIBDIRS environment variable to the empty string
("").
Note that MIBs specified using the -m option or the mibs config‐
uration directive will be loaded from one of the directories
listed by the -M option (or equivalents). The mibfile directive
takes a full path to the specified MIB file, so this does not
need to be in the MIB directory search list.
-n contextName
Set the contextName used for SNMPv3 messages. The default con‐
textName is the empty string "". Overrides the defContext token
in the snmp.conf file.
-O [abeEfnqQsStTuUvxX]
Specifies output printing options. See OUTPUT OPTIONS below.
-P [cdeRuwW]
Specifies MIB parsing options. See MIB PARSING OPTIONS below.
-r retries
Specifies the number of retries to be used in the requests. The
default is 5.
-t timeout
Specifies the timeout in seconds between retries. The default is
1.
-u secName
Set the securityName used for authenticated SNMPv3 messages.
Overrides the defSecurityName token in the snmp.conf file.
-v 1 | 2c | 3
Specifies the protocol version to use: 1 (RFCs 1155-1157), 2c
(RFCs 1901-1908), or 3 (RFCs 2571-2574). The default is typi‐
cally version 3. Overrides the defVersion token in the
snmp.conf file.
-V, --version
Display version information for the application and then exit.
-x privProtocol
Set the privacy protocol (DES or AES) used for encrypted SNMPv3
messages. Overrides the defPrivType token in the snmp.conf
file. This option is only valid if the Net-SNMP software was
build to use OpenSSL.
-X privPassword
Set the privacy pass phrase used for encrypted SNMPv3 messages.
Overrides the defPrivPassphrase token in the snmp.conf file. It
is insecure to specify pass phrases on the command line, see
snmp.conf(5).
-Z boots,time
Set the engineBoots and engineTime used for authenticated SNMPv3
messages. This will initialize the local notion of the agents
boots/time with an authenticated value stored in the LCD. It is
typically not necessary to specify this option, as these values
will usually be discovered automatically.
-Yname="value"
--name="value"
Allows to specify any token ("name") supported in the snmp.conf
file and sets its value to "value". Overrides the corresponding
token in the snmp.conf file. See snmp.conf(5) for the full list
of tokens.
AGENT SPECIFICATION
The string AGENT in the SYNOPSIS above specifies the remote SNMP entity
with which to communicate. This specification takes the form:
[<transport-specifier>:]<transport-address>
At its simplest, the AGENT specification may consist of a hostname, or
an IPv4 address in the standard "dotted quad" notation. In this case,
communication will be attempted using UDP/IPv4 to port 161 of the given
host. Otherwise, the <transport-address> part of the specification is
parsed according to the following table:
<transport-specifier> <transport-address> format
udp hostname[:port] or IPv4-address[:port]
tcp hostname[:port] or IPv4-address[:port]
unix pathname
ipx [network]:node[/port]
aal5pvc or pvc [interface.][VPI.]VCI
udp6 or udpv6 or udpipv6 hostname[:port] or IPv6-address:port or
'['IPv6-address']'[:port]
tcp6 or tcpv6 or tcpipv6 hostname[:port] or IPv6-address:port or
'['IPv6-address']'[:port]
Note that <transport-specifier> strings are case-insensitive so that,
for example, "tcp" and "TCP" are equivalent. Here are some examples,
along with their interpretation:
hostname:161 perform query using UDP/IPv4 datagrams to host‐
name on port 161. The ":161" is redundant here
since that is the default SNMP port in any
case.
udp:hostname identical to the previous specification. The
"udp:" is redundant here since UDP/IPv4 is the
default transport.
TCP:hostname:1161 connect to hostname on port 1161 using TCP/IPv4
and perform query over that connection.
ipx::00D0B7AAE308 perform query using IPX datagrams to node num‐
ber 00D0B7AAE308 on the default network, and
using the default IPX port of 36879 (900F hexa‐
decimal), as suggested in RFC 1906.
ipx:0AE43409:00D0B721C6C0/1161
perform query using IPX datagrams to port 1161
on node number 00D0B721C6C0 on network number
0AE43409.
unix:/tmp/local-agent connect to the Unix domain socket /tmp/local-
agent, and perform the query over that connec‐
tion.
/tmp/local-agent identical to the previous specification, since
the Unix domain is the default transport iff
the first character of the <transport-address>
is a '/'.
AAL5PVC:100 perform the query using AAL5 PDUs sent on the
permanent virtual circuit with VPI=0 and
VCI=100 (decimal) on the first ATM adapter in
the machine.
PVC:1.10.32 perform the query using AAL5 PDUs sent on the
permanent virtual circuit with VPI=10 (decimal)
and VCI=32 (decimal) on the second ATM adapter
in the machine. Note that "PVC" is a synonym
for "AAL5PVC".
udp6:hostname:10161 perform the query using UDP/IPv6 datagrams to
port 10161 on hostname (which will be looked up
as an AAAA record).
UDP6:[fe80::2d0:b7ff:fe21:c6c0]
perform the query using UDP/IPv6 datagrams to
port 161 at address fe80::2d0:b7ff:fe21:c6c0.
tcpipv6:[::1]:1611 connect to port 1611 on the local host (::1 in
IPv6 parlance) using TCP/IPv6 and perform query
over that connection.
Note that not all the transport domains listed above will always be
available; for instance, hosts with no IPv6 support will not be able to
use udp6 transport addresses, and attempts to do so will result in the
error "Unknown host". Likewise, since AAL5 PVC support is only cur‐
rently available on Linux, it will fail with the same error on other
platforms.
MIB PARSING OPTIONS
The Net-SNMP MIB parser mostly adheres to the Structure of Management
Information (SMI). As that specification has changed through time, and
in recognition of the (ahem) diversity in compliance expressed in MIB
files, additional options provide more flexibility in reading MIB
files.
-Pc Toggles whether ASN.1 comments should extend to the end of the
MIB source line. Strictly speaking, a second appearance of "--"
should terminate the comment, but this breaks some MIB files.
The default behaviour (to interpret comments correctly) can also
be set with the (misnamed) configuration token strictComment‐
Term.
-Pd Disables the loading of MIB object DESCRIPTIONs when parsing MIB
files. This reduces the amount of memory used by the running
application.
-Pe Toggles whether to show errors encountered when parsing MIB
files. These include references to IMPORTed modules and MIB
objects that cannot be located in the MIB directory search list.
The default behaviour can also be set with the configuration
token showMibErrors.
-PR If the same MIB object (parent name and sub-identifier) appears
multiple times in the list of MIB definitions loaded, use the
last version to be read in. By default, the first version will
be used, and any duplicates discarded. This behaviour can also
be set with the configuration token mibReplaceWithLatest.
Such ordering is normally only relevant if there are two MIB
files with conflicting object definitions for the same OID (or
different revisions of the same basic MIB object).
-Pu Toggles whether to allow the underline character in MIB object
names and other symbols. Strictly speaking, this is not valid
SMI syntax, but some vendor MIB files define such names. The
default behaviour can also be set with the configuration token
mibAllowUnderline.
-Pw Show various warning messages in parsing MIB files and building
the overall OID tree. This can also be set with the configura‐
tion directive mibWarningLevel 1
-PW Show some additional warning messages, mostly relating to pars‐
ing individual MIB objects. This can also be set with the con‐
figuration directive mibWarningLevel 2
OUTPUT OPTIONS
The format of the output from SNMP commands can be controlled using
various parameters of the -O flag. The effects of these sub-options
can be seen by comparison with the following default output (unless
otherwise specified):
$ snmpget -c public -v 1 localhost sysUpTime.0
SNMPv2-MIB::sysUpTime.0 = Timeticks: (14096763) 1 day, 15:09:27.63
-Oa Display string values as ASCII strings (unless there is a DIS‐
PLAY-HINT defined for the corresponding MIB object). By
default, the library attempts to determine whether the value is
a printable or binary string, and displays it accordingly.
This option does not affect objects that do have a Display Hint.
-Ob Display table indexes numerically, rather than trying to inter‐
pret the instance subidentifiers as string or OID values:
$ snmpgetnext -c public -v 1 localhost vacmSecurityModel
SNMP-VIEW-BASED-ACM-MIB::vacmSecurityModel.0."wes" = xxx
$ snmpgetnext -c public -v 1 -Ob localhost vacmSecurityModel
SNMP-VIEW-BASED-ACM-MIB::vacmSecurityModel.0.3.119.101.115 = xxx
-Oe Removes the symbolic labels from enumeration values:
$ snmpget -c public -v 1 localhost ipForwarding.0
IP-MIB::ipForwarding.0 = INTEGER: forwarding(1)
$ snmpget -c public -v 1 -Oe localhost ipForwarding.0
IP-MIB::ipForwarding.0 = INTEGER: 1
-OE Modifies index strings to escape the quote characters:
$ snmpgetnext -c public -v 1 localhost vacmSecurityModel
SNMP-VIEW-BASED-ACM-MIB::vacmSecurityModel.0."wes" = xxx
$ snmpgetnext -c public -v 1 -OE localhost vacmSecurityModel
SNMP-VIEW-BASED-ACM-MIB::vacmSecurityModel.0.\"wes\" = xxx
This allows the output to be reused in shell commands.
-Of Include the full list of MIB objects when displaying an OID:
.iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2.system.sysUpTime.0 =
Timeticks: (14096763) 1 day, 15:09:27.63
-On Displays the OID numerically:
.1.3.6.1.2.1.1.3.0 = Timeticks: (14096763) 1 day,
15:09:27.63
-Oq Removes the equal sign and type information when displaying
varbind values:
SNMPv2-MIB::sysUpTime.0 1:15:09:27.63
-OQ Removes the type information when displaying varbind values:
SNMPv2-MIB::sysUpTime.0 = 1:15:09:27.63
-Os Display the MIB object name (plus any instance or other subiden‐
tifiers):
sysUpTime.0 = Timeticks: (14096763) 1 day, 15:09:27.63
-OS Display the name of the MIB, as well as the object name:
SNMPv2-MIB::sysUpTime.0 = Timeticks: (14096763) 1 day,
15:09:27.63
This is the default OID output format.
-Ot Display TimeTicks values as raw numbers:
SNMPv2-MIB::sysUpTime.0 = 14096763
-OT If values are printed as Hex strings, display a printable ver‐
sion as well.
-Ou Display the OID in the traditional UCD-style (inherited from the
original CMU code). That means removing a series of "standard"
prefixes from the OID, and displaying the remaining list of MIB
object names (plus any other subidentifiers):
system.sysUpTime.0 = Timeticks: (14096763) 1 day,
15:09:27.63
-OU Do not print the UNITS suffix at the end of the value.
-Ov Display the varbind value only, not the OID:
$ snmpget -c public -v 1 -Oe localhost ipForwarding.0
INTEGER: forwarding(1)-Ox Display string values as Hex strings (unless there is a DISPLAY-
HINT defined for the corresponding MIB object). By default, the
library attempts to determine whether the value is a printable
or binary string, and displays it accordingly.
This option does not affect objects that do have a Display Hint.
-OX Display table indexes in a more "program like" output, imitating
a traditional array-style index format:
$ snmpgetnext -c public -v 1 localhost ipv6RouteTable
IPv6-MIB::ipv6RouteIfIndex.63.254.1.0.255.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.64.1 = INTEGER: 2
$ snmpgetnext -c public -v 1 -OE localhost ipv6RouteTable
IPv6-MIB::ipv6RouteIfIndex[3ffe:100:ff00:0:0:0:0:0][64][1] = INTEGER: 2
Most of these options can also be configured via configuration tokens.
See the snmp.conf(5) manual page for details.
LOGGING OPTIONS
The mechanism and destination to use for logging of warning and error
messages can be controlled by passing various parameters to the -L
flag.
-Le Log messages to the standard error stream.
-Lf FILE
Log messages to the specified file.
-Lo Log messages to the standard output stream.
-Ls FACILITY
Log messages via syslog, using the specified facility ('d' for
LOG_DAEMON, 'u' for LOG_USER, or '0'-'7' for LOG_LOCAL0 through
LOG_LOCAL7).
There are also "upper case" versions of each of these options, which
allow the corresponding logging mechanism to be restricted to certain
priorities of message. Using standard error logging as an example:
-LE pri
will log messages of priority 'pri' and above to standard error.
-LE p1-p2
will log messages with priority between 'p1' and 'p2' (inclu‐
sive) to standard error.
For -LF and -LS the priority specification comes before the file or
facility token. The priorities recognised are:
0 or ! for LOG_EMERG,
1 or a for LOG_ALERT,
2 or c for LOG_CRIT,
3 or e for LOG_ERR,
4 or w for LOG_WARNING,
5 or n for LOG_NOTICE,
6 or i for LOG_INFO, and
7 or d for LOG_DEBUG.
Normal output is (or will be!) logged at a priority level of LOG_NOTICE
INPUT OPTIONS
The interpretation of input object names and the values to be assigned
can be controlled using various parameters of the -I flag. The default
behaviour will be described at the end of this section.
-Ib specifies that the given name should be regarded as a regular
expression, to match (case-insensitively) against object names
in the MIB tree. The "best" match will be used - calculated as
the one that matches the closest to the beginning of the node
name and the highest in the tree. For example, the MIB object
vacmSecurityModel could be matched by the expression vacmsecuri‐
tymodel (full name, but different case), or vacm.*model (regexp
pattern).
Note that '.' is a special character in regular expression pat‐
terns, so the expression cannot specify instance subidentifiers
or more than one object name. A "best match" expression will
only be applied against single MIB object names. For example,
the expression sys*ontact.0 would not match the instance sysCon‐
tact.0 (although sys*ontact would match sysContact). Similarly,
specifying a MIB module name will not succeed (so
SNMPv2-MIB::sys.*ontact would not match either).
-Ih disables the use of DISPLAY-HINT information when assigning val‐
ues. This would then require providing the raw value:
snmpset ... HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrSystemDate.0
x "07 D2 0C 0A 02 04 06 08"
instead of a formatted version:
snmpset ... HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrSystemDate.0
= 2002-12-10,2:4:6.8
-Ir disables checking table indexes and the value to be assigned
against the relevant MIB definitions. This will (hopefully)
result in the remote agent reporting an invalid request, rather
than checking (and rejecting) this before it is sent to the
remote agent.
Local checks are more efficient (and the diagnostics provided
also tend to be more precise), but disabling this behaviour is
particularly useful when testing the remote agent.
-IR enables "random access" lookup of MIB names. Rather than pro‐
viding a full OID path to the desired MIB object (or qualifying
this object with an explicit MIB module name), the MIB tree will
be searched for the matching object name. Thus
.iso.org.dod.internet.mib-2.system.sysDescr.0 (or
SNMPv2-MIB::sysDescr.0) can be specified simply as sysDescr.0.
Warning:
Since MIB object names are not globally unique, this
approach may return a different MIB object depending on
which MIB files have been loaded.
The MIB-MODULE::objectName syntax has the advantage of uniquely
identifying a particular MIB object, as well as being slightly
more efficient (and automatically loading the necessary MIB file
if necessary).
-Is SUFFIX
adds the specified suffix to each textual OID given on the com‐
mand line. This can be used to retrieve multiple objects from
the same row of a table, by specifying a common index value.
-IS PREFIX
adds the specified prefix to each textual OID given on the com‐
mand line. This can be used to specify an explicit MIB module
name for all objects being retrieved (or for incurably lazy typ‐
ists).
-Iu enables the traditional UCD-style approach to interpreting input
OIDs. This assumes that OIDs are rooted at the 'mib-2' point in
the tree (unless they start with an explicit '.' or include a
MIB module name). So the sysDescr instance above would be ref‐
erenced as system.sysDescr.0.
Object names specified with a leading '.' are always interpreted as
"fully qualified" OIDs, listing the sequence of MIB objects from the
root of the MIB tree. Such objects and those qualified by an explicit
MIB module name are unaffected by the -Ib, -IR and -Iu flags.
Otherwise, if none of the above input options are specified, the
default behaviour for a "relative" OID is to try and interpret it as an
(implicitly) fully qualified OID, then apply "random access" lookup
(-IR), followed by "best match" pattern matching (-Ib).
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
PREFIX The standard prefix for object identifiers (when using UCD-style
output). Defaults to .iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2
MIBS The list of MIBs to load. Defaults to SNMPv2-TC:SNMPv2-MIB:IF-
MIB:IP-MIB:TCP-MIB:UDP-MIB:SNMP-VACM-MIB. Overridden by the -m
option.
MIBDIRS
The list of directories to search for MIBs. Defaults to
/usr/share/snmp/mibs. Overridden by the -M option.
FILES
/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
Agent configuration file. See snmpd.conf(5).
/etc/snmp/snmp.conf
~/.snmp/snmp.conf
Application configuration files. See snmp.conf(5).
SEE ALSOsnmpget(1), snmpgetnext(1), snmpset(1), snmpbulkget(1), snmpbulk‐
walk(1), snmpwalk(1), snmptable(1), snmpnetstat(1), snmpdelta(1),
snmptrap(1), snmpinform(1), snmpusm(1), snmpstatus(1), snmptest(1),
snmp.conf(5).
4th Berkeley Distribution 29 Jun 2005 SNMPCMD(1)
