SNMPD.CONF(5) Net-SNMP SNMPD.CONF(5)NAMEsnmpd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP SNMP agent
DESCRIPTION
The Net-SNMP agent uses one or more configuration files to control its
operation and the management information provided. These files
(snmpd.conf and snmpd.local.conf) can be located in one of several
locations, as described in the snmp_config(5) manual page.
The (perl) application snmpconf can be used to generate configuration
files for the most common agent requirements. See the snmpconf(1) man‐
ual page for more information, or try running the command:
snmpconf -g basic_setup
There are a large number of directives that can be specified, but these
mostly fall into four distinct categories:
· those controlling who can access the agent
· those configuring the information that is supplied by the agent
· those controlling active monitoring of the local system
· those concerned with extending the functionality of the agent.
Some directives don't fall naturally into any of these four categories,
but this covers the majority of the contents of a typical snmpd.conf
file. A full list of recognised directives can be obtained by running
the command:
snmpd -H
AGENT BEHAVIOUR
Although most configuration directives are concerned with the MIB
information supplied by the agent, there are a handful of directives
that control the behaviour of snmpd considered simply as a daemon pro‐
viding a network service.
agentaddress [<transport-specifier>:]<transport-address>[,...]
defines a list of listening addresses, on which to receive
incoming SNMP requests. See the section LISTENING ADDRESSES in
the snmpd(8) manual page for more information about the format
of listening addresses.
The default behaviour is to listen on UDP port 161 on all IPv4
interfaces.
agentgroup {GROUP|#GID}
changes to the specified group after opening the listening
port(s). This may refer to a group by name (GROUP), or a
numeric group ID starting with '#' (#GID).
agentuser {USER|#UID}
changes to the specified user after opening the listening
port(s). This may refer to a user by name (USER), or a numeric
user ID starting with '#' (#UID).
leave_pidfile yes
instructs the agent to not remove its pid file on shutdown.
Equivalent to specifying "-U" on the command line.
maxGetbulkRepeats NUM
Sets the maximum number of responses allowed for a single vari‐
able in a getbulk request. Set to 0 to enable the default and
set it to -1 to enable unlimited. Because memory is allocated
ahead of time, sitting this to unlimited is not considered safe
if your user population can not be trusted. A repeat number
greater than this will be truncated to this value.
This is set by default to -1.
maxGetbulkResponses NUM
Sets the maximum number of responses allowed for a getbulk
request. This is set by default to 100. Set to 0 to enable the
default and set it to -1 to enable unlimited. Because memory is
allocated ahead of time, sitting this to unlimited is not con‐
sidered safe if your user population can not be trusted.
In general, the total number of responses will not be allowed to
exceed the maxGetbulkResponses number and the total number
returned will be an integer multiple of the number of variables
requested times the calculated number of repeats allow to fit
below this number.
Also not that processing of maxGetbulkRepeats is handled first.
SNMPv3 Configuration - Real Security
SNMPv3 is added flexible security models to the SNMP packet structure
so that multiple security solutions could be used. SNMPv3 was original
defined with a "User-based Security Model" (USM) [RFC3414] that
required maintaining a SNMP-specific user database. This was later
determined to be troublesome to maintain and had some minor security
issues. The IETF has since added additional security models to tunnel
SNMP over SSH [RFC5592] and DTLS/TLS [RFC-to-be]. Net-SNMP contains
robust support for SNMPv3/USM, SNMPv3/TLS, and SNMPv3/DTLS. It con‐
tains partial support for SNMPv3/SSH as well but has not been as exten‐
sively tested. It also contains code for support for an experimental
Kerberos based SNMPv3 that never got standardized.
Hopeful more SNMP software and devices will eventually support SNMP
over (D)TLS or SSH, but it is likely that devices with original support
for SNMP will only contain support for SNMP over USM. If your network
manager supports SNMP over (D)TLS or SNMP over SSH we suggest you use
one of these mechanisms instead of using USM, but as always with Net-
SNMP we give you the options to pick from so you can make the choice
that is best for you.
SNMPv3 generic parameters
These parameters are generic to all the forms of SNMPv3. The SNMPv3
protocol defines "engineIDs" that uniquely identify an agent. The
string must be consistent through time and should not change or con‐
flict with another agent's engineID. Ever. Internally, Net-SNMP by
default creates a unique engineID that is based off of the current sys‐
tem time and a random number. This should be sufficient for most users
unless you're embedding our agent in a device where these numbers won't
vary between boxes on the devices initial boot.
EngineIDs are used both as a "context" for selecting information
from the device and SNMPv3 with USM uses it to create unique
entries for users in its user table.
The Net-SNMP agent offers the following mechanisms for setting
the engineID, but again you should only use them if you know
what you're doing:
engineID STRING
specifies that the engineID should be built from the given text
STRING.
engineIDType 1|2|3
specifies that the engineID should be built from the IPv4
address (1), IPv6 address (2) or MAC address (3). Note that
changing the IP address (or switching the network interface
card) may cause problems.
engineIDNic INTERFACE
defines which interface to use when determining the MAC address.
If engineIDType 3 is not specified, then this directive has no
effect.
The default is to use eth0.
SNMPv3 over TLS
SNMPv3 may be tunneled over TLS and DTLS. TLS runs over TCP and DTLS
is the UDP equivalent. Wes Hardaker (the founder of Net-SNMP) per‐
formed a study and presented it at an IETF meeting that showed that TCP
based protocols are sufficient for stable networks but quickly becomes
a problem in unstable networks with even moderate levels of packet loss
(~ 20-30%). If you are going to use TLS or DTLS, you should use the
one appropriate for your networking environment. You should poten‐
tially turn them both on so your management system can access either
the UDP or the TCP port as needed.
Many of the configuration tokens described below are prefixed with a
'[snmp]' tag. If you place these tokens in your snmpd.conf file, this
take is required. See the snmp_config(5) manual page for the meaning
of this context switch.
[snmp] serverCert <specifier>
This token defines the default X.509 public key to use as the
server's identity. It should either be a fingerprint or a file‐
name. To create a public key for use, please run the "net-snmp-
cert" utility which will help you create the required certifi‐
cate.
The default value for this is the certificate in the "snmpd"
named certificate file.
[snmp] clientCert <specifier>
If outgoing TLS connections are to be opened, for example
because notifications are to be sent over TLS, then this will
select the client-side public key to use for those outgoing con‐
nections. It can either be specified as a fingerprint or a
filename. See the "net-snmp-cert" utility for creating certifi‐
cates.
[snmp] tlsAlgorithms <algorithms>
This string will select the algorithms to use when negotiating
security during (D)TLS session establishment. See the openssl
manual page ciphers(1) for details on the format. Examples
strings include:
DEFAULT
ALL
HIGH
HIGH:!AES128-SHA
The default value is whatever openssl itself was configured
with.
[snmp] x059CRLFile
If you are using a Certificate Authority (CA) that publishes a
Certificate Revocation List (CRL) then this token can be used to
specify the location in the filesystem of a copy of the CRL
file. Note that Net-SNMP will not pull a CRL over http and this
must be a file, not a URL. Additionally, OpenSSL does not
reload a CRL file when it has changed so modifications or
updates to the file will only be noticed upon a restart of the
snmpd agent.
certSecName PRIORITY FINGERPRINT OPTIONS
OPTIONS can be one of <--sn SECNAME | --rfc822 | --dns | --ip |
--cn | --any>.
The certSecName token will specify how to map a certificate
field from the client's X.509 certificate to a SNMPv3 username.
Use the --sn SECNAME flag to directly specify a securityName for
a given certificate. The other flags extract a particular com‐
ponent of the certificate for use as a snmpv3 securityName.
These fields are one of: A SubjectAltName containing an rfc822
value (eg hardaker@net-snmp.org), A SubjectAltName containing a
dns name value (eg foo.net-snmp.org), an IP address (eg
192.0.2.1) or a common name "Wes Hardaker". The --any flag
specifies that any of the subjecAltName fields may be used.
Make sure once a securityName has been selected that it is given
authorization via the VACM controls discussed later in this man‐
ual page.
See the http://www.net-snmp.org/wiki/index.php/Using_DTLS web
page for more detailed instructions for setting up (D)TLS.
trustCert <specifier>
For X509 to properly verify a certificate, it should be verifi‐
able up until a trust anchor for it. This trust anchor is typi‐
cally a CA certificate but it could also be a self-signed cer‐
tificate. The "trustCert" token should be used to load specific
trust anchors into the verification engine.
SNMP over (D)TLS requires the use of the Transport Security Model
(TSM), so read the section on the usage of the Transport Security Model
as well. Make sure when you configure the VACM to accept connections
from (D)TLS that you use the "tsm" security model. E.G.:
rwuser -s tsm hardaker@net-snmp.org
SNMPv3 over SSH Support
To use SSH, you'll need to configure sshd to invoke the sshtosnmp pro‐
gram as well as configure the access control settings to allow access
through the tsm security model using the user name provided to snmpd by
the ssh transport.
SNMPv3 with the Transport Security Model (TSM)
The Transport Security Model [RFC5591] defines a SNMPv3 security system
for use with "tunneled" security protocols like TLS, DTLS and SSH. It
is a very simple security model that simply lets properly protected
packets to pass through into the snmp application. The transport is
required to pass a securityName to use to the TSM and the TSM may
optionally prefix this with a transport string (see below).
tsmUseTransportPrefix (1|yes|true|0|no|false)
If set to true, the TSM module will take every securityName
passed to it from the transports underneath and prefix it with a
string that specifically identities the transport it came from.
This is useful to avoid securityName clashes with transports
that generate identical security names. For example, if the ssh
security transport delivered the security name of "hardaker" for
a SSH connection and the TLS security transport also delivered
the security name of "hardaker" for a TLS connection then it
would be impossible to separate out these two users to provide
separate access control rights. With the tsmUseTransportPrefix
set to true, however, the securityNames would be prefixed appro‐
priately with one of: "tls:", "dtls:" or "ssh:".
SNMPv3 with the User-based Security Model (USM)
SNMPv3 was originally defined using the User-Based Security Model
(USM), which contains a private list of users and keys specific to the
SNMPv3 protocol. The operational community, however, declared it a
pain to manipulate yet another database and would prefer to use exist‐
ing infrastructure. To that end the IETF created the ISMS working
group to battle that problem, and the ISMS working group decided to
tunnel SNMP over SSH and DTLS to make use existing user and authentica‐
tion infrastructures.
SNMPv3 USM Users
To use the USM based SNMPv3-specific users, you'll need to create them.
It is recommended you use the net-snmp-config command to do this, but
you can also do it by directly specifying createUser directives your‐
self instead:
createUser [-e ENGINEID] username (MD5|SHA) authpassphrase [DES|AES]
[privpassphrase]
MD5 and SHA are the authentication types to use. DES and AES
are the privacy protocols to use. If the privacy passphrase is
not specified, it is assumed to be the same as the authentica‐
tion passphrase. Note that the users created will be useless
unless they are also added to the VACM access control tables
described above.
SHA authentication and DES/AES privacy require OpenSSL to be
installed and the agent to be built with OpenSSL support. MD5
authentication may be used without OpenSSL.
Warning: the minimum pass phrase length is 8 characters.
SNMPv3 users can be created at runtime using the snmpusm(1) com‐
mand.
Instead of figuring out how to use this directive and where to
put it (see below), just run "net-snmp-config --create-
snmpv3-user" instead, which will add one of these lines to the
right place.
This directive should be placed into the /var/db/net-
snmp/snmpd.conf file instead of the other normal locations. The
reason is that the information is read from the file and then
the line is removed (eliminating the storage of the master pass‐
word for that user) and replaced with the key that is derived
from it. This key is a localized key, so that if it is stolen
it can not be used to access other agents. If the password is
stolen, however, it can be.
If you need to localize the user to a particular EngineID (this
is useful mostly in the similar snmptrapd.conf file), you can
use the -e argument to specify an EngineID as a hex value (EG,
"0x01020304").
If you want to generate either your master or localized keys
directly, replace the given password with a hexstring (preceeded
by a "0x") and precede the hex string by a -m or -l token
(respectively). EGs:
[these keys are *not* secure but are easy to visually parse for
counting purposes. Please generate random keys instead of using
these examples]
createUser myuser SHA -l 0x0001020304050607080900010203040506070809 AES -l 0x00010203040506070809000102030405
createUser myuser SHA -m 0x0001020304050607080900010203040506070809 AES -m 0x0001020304050607080900010203040506070809
Due to the way localization happens, localized privacy keys are
expected to be the length needed by the algorithm (128 bits for
all supported algorithms). Master encryption keys, though, need
to be the length required by the authentication algorithm not
the length required by the encrypting algorithm (MD5: 16 bytes,
SHA: 20 bytes).
ACCESS CONTROL
snmpd supports the View-Based Access Control Model (VACM) as defined in
RFC 2575, to control who can retrieve or update information. To this
end, it recognizes various directives relating to access control.
Traditional Access Control
Most simple access control requirements can be specified using the
directives rouser/rwuser (for SNMPv3) or rocommunity/rwcommunity (for
SNMPv1 or SNMPv2c).
rouser [-s SECMODEL] USER [noauth|auth|priv [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
rwuser [-s SECMODEL] USER [noauth|auth|priv [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
specify an SNMPv3 user that will be allowed read-only (GET and
GETNEXT) or read-write (GET, GETNEXT and SET) access respec‐
tively. By default, this will provide access to the full OID
tree for authenticated (including encrypted) SNMPv3 requests,
using the default context. An alternative minimum security
level can be specified using noauth (to allow unauthenticated
requests), or priv (to enforce use of encryption). The OID
field restricts access for that user to the subtree rooted at
the given OID, or the named view. An optional context can also
be specified, or "context*" to denote a context prefix. If no
context field is specified (or the token "*" is used), the
directive will match all possible contexts.
If SECMODEL is specified then it will be the security model
required for that user (note that identical user names may come
in over different security models and will be appropriately sep‐
arated via the access control settings). The default security
model is "usm" and the other common security models are likely
"tsm" when using (D)TLS or SSH support and "ksm" if the Kerberos
support has been compiled in.
rocommunity COMMUNITY [SOURCE [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
rwcommunity COMMUNITY [SOURCE [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
specify an SNMPv1 or SNMPv2c community that will be allowed
read-only (GET and GETNEXT) or read-write (GET, GETNEXT and SET)
access respectively. By default, this will provide access to
the full OID tree for such requests, regardless of where they
were sent from. The SOURCE token can be used to restrict access
to requests from the specified system(s) - see com2sec for the
full details. The OID field restricts access for that community
to the subtree rooted at the given OID, or named view. Contexts
are typically less relevant to community-based SNMP versions,
but the same behaviour applies here.
rocommunity6 COMMUNITY [SOURCE [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
rwcommunity6 COMMUNITY [SOURCE [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
are directives relating to requests received using IPv6 (if the
agent supports such transport domains). The interpretation of
the SOURCE, OID, VIEW and CONTEXT tokens are exactly the same as
for the IPv4 versions.
In each case, only one directive should be specified for a given SNMPv3
user, or community string. It is not appropriate to specify both
rouser and rwuser directives referring to the same SNMPv3 user (or
equivalent community settings). The rwuser directive provides all the
access of rouser (as well as allowing SET support). The same holds
true for the community-based directives.
More complex access requirements (such as access to two or more dis‐
tinct OID subtrees, or different views for GET and SET requests) should
use one of the other access control mechanisms. Note that if several
distinct communities or SNMPv3 users need to be granted the same level
of access, it would also be more efficient to use the main VACM config‐
uration directives.
VACM Configuration
The full flexibility of the VACM is available using four configuration
directives - com2sec, group, view and access. These provide direct
configuration of the underlying VACM tables.
com2sec [-Cn CONTEXT] SECNAME SOURCE COMMUNITY
com2sec6 [-Cn CONTEXT] SECNAME SOURCE COMMUNITY
map an SNMPv1 or SNMPv2c community string to a security name -
either from a particular range of source addresses, or globally
("default"). A restricted source can either be a specific host‐
name (or address), or a subnet - represented as IP/MASK (e.g.
10.10.10.0/255.255.255.0), or IP/BITS (e.g. 10.10.10.0/24), or
the IPv6 equivalents.
The same community string can be specified in several separate
directives (presumably with different source tokens), and the
first source/community combination that matches the incoming
request will be selected. Various source/community combinations
can also map to the same security name.
If a CONTEXT is specified (using -Cn), the community string will
be mapped to a security name in the named SNMPv3 context. Other‐
wise the default context ("") will be used.
com2secunix [-Cn CONTEXT] SECNAME SOCKPATH COMMUNITY
is the Unix domain sockets version of com2sec.
group GROUP {v1|v2c|usm|tsm|ksm} SECNAME
maps a security name (in the specified security model) into a
named group. Several group directives can specify the same
group name, allowing a single access setting to apply to several
users and/or community strings.
Note that groups must be set up for the two community-based mod‐
els separately - a single com2sec (or equivalent) directive will
typically be accompanied by two group directives.
view VNAME TYPE OID [MASK]
defines a named "view" - a subset of the overall OID tree. This
is most commonly a single subtree, but several view directives
can be given with the same view name (VNAME), to build up a more
complex collection of OIDs. TYPE is either included or
excluded, which can again define a more complex view (e.g by
excluding certain sensitive objects from an otherwise accessible
subtree).
MASK is a list of hex octets (optionally separated by '.' or
':') with the set bits indicating which subidentifiers in the
view OID to match against. If not specified, this defaults to
matching the OID exactly (all bits set), thus defining a simple
OID subtree. So:
view iso1 included .iso 0xf0
view iso2 included .iso
view iso3 included .iso.org.dod.mgmt 0xf0
would all define the same view, covering the whole of the
'iso(1)' subtree (with the third example ignoring the subidenti‐
fiers not covered by the mask).
More usefully, the mask can be used to define a view covering a
particular row (or rows) in a table, by matching against the
appropriate table index value, but skipping the column subiden‐
tifier:
view ifRow4 included .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.0.4 0xff:a0
Note that a mask longer than 8 bits must use ':' to separate the
individual octets.
access GROUP CONTEXT {any|v1|v2c|usm|tsm|ksm} LEVEL PREFX READ WRITE
NOTIFY
maps from a group of users/communities (with a particular secu‐
rity model and minimum security level, and in a specific con‐
text) to one of three views, depending on the request being pro‐
cessed.
LEVEL is one of noauth, auth, or priv. PREFX specifies how CON‐
TEXT should be matched against the context of the incoming
request, either exact or prefix. READ, WRITE and NOTIFY speci‐
fies the view to be used for GET*, SET and TRAP/INFORM requests
(althought the NOTIFY view is not currently used). For v1 or
v2c access, LEVEL will need to be noauth.
Typed-View Configuration
The final group of directives extend the VACM approach into a more
flexible mechanism, which can be applied to other access control
requirements. Rather than the fixed three views of the standard VACM
mechanism, this can be used to configure various different view types.
As far as the main SNMP agent is concerned, the two main view types are
read and write, corresponding to the READ and WRITE views of the main
access directive. See the 'snmptrapd.conf(5)' man page for discussion
of other view types.
authcommunity TYPES COMMUNITY [SOURCE [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
is an alternative to the rocommunity/rwcommunity directives.
TYPES will usually be read or read,write respectively. The view
specification can either be an OID subtree (as before), or a
named view (defined using the view directive) for greater flexi‐
bility. If this is omitted, then access will be allowed to the
full OID tree. If CONTEXT is specified, access is configured
within this SNMPv3 context. Otherwise the default context ("")
is used.
authuser TYPES [-s MODEL] USER [LEVEL [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
is an alternative to the rouser/rwuser directives. The fields
TYPES, OID, VIEW and CONTEXT have the same meaning as for auth‐
community.
authgroup TYPES [-s MODEL] GROUP [LEVEL [OID | -V VIEW [CONTEXT]]]
is a companion to the authuser directive, specifying access for
a particular group (defined using the group directive as usual).
Both authuser and authgroup default to authenticated requests -
LEVEL can also be specified as noauth or priv to allow unauthen‐
ticated requests, or require encryption respectively. Both
authuser and authgroup directives also default to configuring
access for SNMPv3/USM requests - use the '-s' flag to specify an
alternative security model (using the same values as for access
above).
authaccess TYPES [-s MODEL] GROUP VIEW [LEVEL [CONTEXT]]
also configures the access for a particular group, specifying
the name and type of view to apply. The MODEL and LEVEL fields
are interpreted in the same way as for authgroup. If CONTEXT is
specified, access is configured within this SNMPv3 context (or
contexts with this prefix if the CONTEXT field ends with '*').
Otherwise the default context ("") is used.
setaccess GROUP CONTEXT MODEL LEVEL PREFIX VIEW TYPES
is a direct equivalent to the original access directive, typi‐
cally listing the view types as read or read,write as appropri‐
ate. (or see 'snmptrapd.conf(5)' for other possibilities). All
other fields have the same interpretation as with access.
SYSTEM INFORMATION
Most of the information reported by the Net-SNMP agent is retrieved
from the underlying system, or dynamically configured via SNMP SET
requests (and retained from one run of the agent to the next). How‐
ever, certain MIB objects can be configured or controlled via the
snmpd.conf(5) file.
System Group
Most of the scalar objects in the 'system' group can be configured in
this way:
sysLocation STRING
sysContact STRING
sysName STRING
set the system location, system contact or system name (sysLoca‐
tion.0, sysContact.0 and sysName.0) for the agent respectively.
Ordinarily these objects are writeable via suitably authorized
SNMP SET requests. However, specifying one of these directives
makes the corresponding object read-only, and attempts to SET it
will result in a notWritable error response.
sysServices NUMBER
sets the value of the sysServices.0 object. For a host system,
a good value is 72 (application + end-to-end layers). If this
directive is not specified, then no value will be reported for
the sysServices.0 object.
sysDescr STRING
sysObjectID OID
sets the system description or object ID for the agent.
Although these MIB objects are not SNMP-writable, these direc‐
tives can be used by a network administrator to configure suit‐
able values for them.
Interfaces Group
interface NAME TYPE SPEED
can be used to provide appropriate type and speed settings for
interfaces where the agent fails to determine this information
correctly. TYPE is a type value as given in the IANAifType-MIB,
and can be specified numerically or by name (assuming this MIB
is loaded).
Host Resources Group
This requires that the agent was built with support for the host module
(which is now included as part of the default build configuration on
the major supported platforms).
ignoreDisk STRING
controls which disk devices are scanned as part of populating
the hrDiskStorageTable (and hrDeviceTable). The HostRes imple‐
mentation code includes a list of disk device patterns appropri‐
ate for the current operating system, some of which may cause
the agent to block when trying to open the corresponding disk
devices. This might lead to a timeout when walking these
tables, possibly resulting in inconsistent behaviour. This
directive can be used to specify particular devices (either
individually or wildcarded) that should not be checked.
Note: Please consult the source (host/hr_disk.c) and check for
the Add_HR_Disk_entry calls relevant for a particular O/S
to determine the list of devices that will be scanned.
The pattern can include one or more wildcard expressions. See
snmpd.examples(5) for illustration of the wildcard syntax.
skipNFSInHostResources true
controls whether NFS and NFS-like file systems should be omitted
from the hrStorageTable (true or 1) or not (false or 0, which is
the default). If the Net-SNMP agent gets hung on NFS-mounted
filesystems, you can try setting this to '1'.
storageUseNFS [1|2]
controls how NFS and NFS-like file systems should be reported in
the hrStorageTable. as 'Network Disks' (1) or 'Fixed Disks' (2)
Historically, the Net-SNMP agent has reported such file systems
as 'Fixed Disks', and this is still the default behaviour. Set‐
ting this directive to '1' reports such file systems as ´Network
Disks', as required by the Host Resources MIB.
Process Monitoring
The hrSWRun group of the Host Resources MIB provides information about
individual processes running on the local system. The prTable of the
UCD-SNMP-MIB complements this by reporting on selected services (which
may involve multiple processes). This requires that the agent was
built with support for the ucd-snmp/proc module (which is included as
part of the default build configuration).
proc NAME [MAX [MIN]]
monitors the number of processes called NAME (as reported by
"/bin/ps -acx") running on the local system.
If the number of NAMEd processes is less than MIN or greater
than MAX, then the corresponding prErrorFlag instance will be
set to 1, and a suitable description message reported via the
prErrMessage instance.
Note: This situation will not automatically trigger a trap to
report the problem - see the DisMan Event MIB section
later.
If neither MAX nor MIN are specified, they will default to
infinity and 1 respectively ("at least one"). If only MAX is
specified, MIN will default to 0 ("no more than MAX"). If MAX
is 0 (and MIN is not), this indicates infinity ("at least MIN").
If both MAX and MIN are 0, this indicates a process that should
not be running.
procfix NAME PROG ARGS
registers a command that can be run to fix errors with the given
process NAME. This will be invoked when the corresponding prE‐
rrFix instance is set to 1.
Note: This command will not be invoked automatically.
The procfix directive must be specified after the matching proc
directive, and cannot be used on its own.
If no proc directives are defined, then walking the prTable will fail
(noSuchObject).
Disk Usage Monitoring
This requires that the agent was built with support for the ucd-
snmp/disk module (which is included as part of the default build con‐
figuration).
disk PATH [ MINSPACE | MINPERCENT% ]
monitors the disk mounted at PATH for available disk space.
The minimum threshold can either be specified in kB (MINSPACE)
or as a percentage of the total disk (MINPERCENT% with a '%'
character), defaulting to 100kB if neither are specified. If
the free disk space falls below this threshold, then the corre‐
sponding dskErrorFlag instance will be set to 1, and a suitable
description message reported via the dskErrorMsg instance.
Note: This situation will not automatically trigger a trap to
report the problem - see the DisMan Event MIB section
later.
includeAllDisks MINPERCENT%
configures monitoring of all disks found on the system, using
the specified (percentage) threshold. The threshold for indi‐
vidual disks can be adjusted using suitable disk directives
(which can come either before or after the includeAllDisks
directive).
Note: Whether disk directives appears before or after
includeAllDisks may affect the indexing of the dskTable.
Only one includeAllDisks directive should be specified - any
subsequent copies will be ignored.
The list of mounted disks will be determined when the agent
starts using the setmntent(3) and getmntent(3), or fopen(3) and
getmntent(3), or setfsent(3) and getfsent(3) system calls. If
none of the above system calls are available then the root par‐
tition "/" (which is assumed to exist on any UNIX based sys‐
tem) will be monitored. Disks mounted after the agent has
started will not be monitored.
If neither any disk directives or includeAllDisks are defined, then
walking the dskTable will fail (noSuchObject).
System Load Monitoring
This requires that the agent was built with support for either the ucd-
snmp/loadave module or the ucd-snmp/memory module respectively (both of
which are included as part of the default build configuration).
load MAX1 [MAX5 [MAX15]]
monitors the load average of the local system, specifying
thresholds for the 1-minute, 5-minute and 15-minute averages.
If any of these loads exceed the associated maximum value, then
the corresponding laErrorFlag instance will be set to 1, and a
suitable description message reported via the laErrMessage
instance.
Note: This situation will not automatically trigger a trap to
report the problem - see the DisMan Event MIB section
later.
If the MAX15 threshold is omitted, it will default to the MAX5
value. If both MAX5 and MAX15 are omitted, they will default to
the MAX1 value. If this directive is not specified, all three
thresholds will default to a value of DEFMAXLOADAVE.
If a threshold value of 0 is given, the agent will not report
errors via the relevant laErrorFlag or laErrMessage instances,
regardless of the current load.
Unlike the proc and disk directives, walking the walking the laTable
will succeed (assuming the ucd-snmp/loadave module was configured into
the agent), even if the load directive is not present.
swap MIN
monitors the amount of swap space available on the local system.
If this falls below the specified threshold (MIN kB), then the
memErrorSwap object will be set to 1, and a suitable description
message reported via memSwapErrorMsg.
Note: This situation will not automatically trigger a trap to
report the problem - see the DisMan Event MIB section
later.
If this directive is not specified, the default threshold is 16 MB.
Log File Monitoring
This requires that the agent was built with support for either the ucd-
snmp/file or ucd-snmp/logmatch modules respectively (both of which are
included as part of the default build configuration).
file FILE [MAXSIZE]
monitors the size of the specified file (in kB). If MAXSIZE is
specified, and the size of the file exceeds this threshold, then
the corresponding fileErrorFlag instance will be set to 1, and a
suitable description message reported via the fileErrorMsg
instance.
Note: This situation will not automatically trigger a trap to
report the problem - see the DisMan Event MIB section
later.
Note: A maximum of 20 files can be monitored.
Note: If no file directives are defined, then walking the
fileTable will fail (noSuchObject).
logmatch NAME FILE CYCLETIME REGEX
monitors the specified file for occurances of the specified pat‐
tern REGEX. The file position is stored internally so the entire
file is only read initially, every subsequent pass will only
read the new lines added to the file since the last read.
NAME name of the logmatch instance (will appear as logMatch‐
Name under logMatch/logMatchTable/logMatchEntry/logMatch‐
Name in the ucd-snmp MIB tree)
FILE absolute path to the logfile to be monitored. Note that
this path can contain date/time directives (like in the
UNIX 'date' command). See the manual page for 'strftime'
for the various directives accepted.
CYCLETIME
time interval for each logfile read and internal variable
update in seconds. Note: an SNMPGET* operation will also
trigger an immediate logfile read and variable update.
REGEX the regular expression to be used. Note: DO NOT enclose
the regular expression in quotes even if there are spaces
in the expression as the quotes will also become part of
the pattern to be matched!
Example:
logmatch apache-GETs
/usr/local/apache/logs/access.log-%Y-%m-%d 60 GET.*HTTP.*
This logmatch instance is named 'apache-GETs', uses
'GET.*HTTP.*' as its regular expression and it will moni‐
tor the file named (assuming today is May 6th 2009):
'/usr/local/apache/logs/access.log-2009-05-06', tomorrow
it will look for 'access.log-2009-05-07'. The logfile is
read every 60 seconds.
Note: A maximum of 250 logmatch directives can be specified.
Note: If no logmatch directives are defined, then walking the
logMatchTable will fail (noSuchObject).
ACTIVE MONITORING
The usual behaviour of an SNMP agent is to wait for incoming SNMP
requests and respond to them - if no requests are received, an agent
will typically not initiate any actions. This section describes various
directives that can configure snmpd to take a more active role.
Notification Handling
trapcommunity STRING
defines the default community string to be used when sending
traps. Note that this directive must be used prior to any com‐
munity-based trap destination directives that need to use it.
trapsink HOST [COMMUNITY [PORT]]
trap2sink HOST [COMMUNITY [PORT]]
informsink HOST [COMMUNITY [PORT]]
define the address of a notification receiver that should be
sent SNMPv1 TRAPs, SNMPv2c TRAP2s, or SNMPv2 INFORM notifica‐
tions respectively. See the section LISTENING ADDRESSES in the
snmpd(8) manual page for more information about the format of
listening addresses. If COMMUNITY is not specified, the most
recent trapcommunity string will be used.
If the transport address does not include an explicit port spec‐
ification, then PORT will be used. If this is not specified,
the well known SNMP trap port (162) will be used.
Note: This mechanism is being deprecated, and the listening
port should be specified via the transport specification
HOST instead.
If several sink directives are specified, multiple copies of
each notification (in the appropriate formats) will be gener‐
ated.
Note: It is not normally appropriate to list two (or all three)
sink directives with the same destination.
trapsess [SNMPCMD_ARGS] HOST
provides a more generic mechanism for defining notification des‐
tinations. SNMPCMD_ARGS should be the command-line options
required for an equivalent snmptrap (or snmpinform) command to
send the desired notification. The option -Ci can be used (with
-v2c or -v3) to generate an INFORM notification rather than an
unacknowledged TRAP.
This is the appropriate directive for defining SNMPv3 trap
receivers. See http://www.net-snmp.org/tutorial/tutorial-5/com‐
mands/snmptrap-v3.html for more information about SNMPv3 notifi‐
cation behaviour.
authtrapenable {1|2}
determines whether to generate authentication failure traps
(enabled(1)) or not (disabled(2) - the default). Ordinarily the
corresponding MIB object (snmpEnableAuthenTraps.0) is read-
write, but specifying this directive makes this object read-
only, and attempts to set the value via SET requests will result
in a notWritable error response.
v1trapaddress HOST
defines the agent address, which is inserted into SNMPv1 TRAPs.
Arbitrary local IPv4 address is chosen if this option is
ommited. This option is useful mainly when the agent is visible
from outside world by specific address only (e.g. because of
network address translation or firewall).
DisMan Event MIB
The previous directives can be used to configure where traps should be
sent, but are not concerned with when to send such traps (or what traps
should be generated). This is the domain of the Event MIB - developed
by the Distributed Management (DisMan) working group of the IETF.
This requires that the agent was built with support for the dis‐
man/event module (which is now included as part of the default build
configuration for the most recent distribution).
Note: The behaviour of the latest implementation differs in
some minor respects from the previous code - nothing too
significant, but existing scripts may possibly need some
minor adjustments.
iquerySecName NAME
agentSecName NAME
specifies the default SNMPv3 username, to be used when making
internal queries to retrieve any necessary information (either
for evaluating the monitored expression, or building a notifica‐
tion payload). These internal queries always use SNMPv3, even
if normal querying of the agent is done using SNMPv1 or SNMPv2c.
Note that this user must also be explicitly created (createUser)
and given appropriate access rights (e.g. rouser). This direc‐
tive is purely concerned with defining which user should be used
- not with actually setting this user up.
monitor [OPTIONS] NAME EXPRESSION
defines a MIB object to monitor. If the EXPRESSION condition
holds (see below), then this will trigger the corresponding
event, and either send a notification or apply a SET assignment
(or both). Note that the event will only be triggered once,
when the expression first matches. This monitor entry will not
fire again until the monitored condition first becomes false,
and then matches again. NAME is an administrative name for this
expression, and is used for indexing the mteTriggerTable (and
related tables). Note also that such monitors use an internal
SNMPv3 request to retrieve the values being monitored (even if
normal agent queries typically use SNMPv1 or SNMPv2c). See the
iquerySecName token described above.
EXPRESSION
There are three types of monitor expression supported by the
Event MIB - existence, boolean and threshold tests.
OID | ! OID | != OID
defines an existence(0) monitor test. A bare OID speci‐
fies a present(0) test, which will fire when (an instance
of) the monitored OID is created. An expression of the
form ! OID specifies an absent(1) test, which will fire
when the monitored OID is delected. An expression of the
form != OID specifies a changed(2) test, which will fire
whenever the monitored value(s) change. Note that there
must be whitespace before the OID token.
OID OP VALUE
defines a boolean(1) monitor test. OP should be one of
the defined comparison operators (!=, ==, <, <=, >, >=)
and VALUE should be an integer value to compare against.
Note that there must be whitespace around the OP token.
A comparison such as OID !=0 will not be handled cor‐
rectly.
OID MIN MAX [DMIN DMAX]
defines a threshold(2) monitor test. MIN and MAX are
integer values, specifying lower and upper thresholds.
If the value of the monitored OID falls below the lower
threshold (MIN) or rises above the upper threshold (MAX),
then the monitor entry will trigger the corresponding
event.
Note that the rising threshold event will only be re-
armed when the monitored value falls below the lower
threshold (MIN). Similarly, the falling threshold event
will be re-armed by the upper threshold (MAX).
The optional parameters DMIN and DMAX configure a pair of
similar threshold tests, but working with the delta dif‐
ferences between successive sample values.
OPTIONS
There are various options to control the behaviour of the moni‐
tored expression. These include:
-D indicates that the expression should be evaluated using
delta differences between sample values (rather than the
values themselves).
-d OID
-di OID
specifies a discontinuity marker for validating delta
differences. A -di object instance will be used exactly
as given. A -d object will have the instance subidenti‐
fiers from the corresponding (wildcarded) expression
object appended. If the -I flag is specified, then there
is no difference between these two options.
This option also implies -D.
-e EVENT
specifies the event to be invoked when this monitor entry
is triggered. If this option is not given, the monitor
entry will generate one of the standard notifications
defined in the DISMAN-EVENT-MIB.
-I indicates that the monitored expression should be applied
to the specified OID as a single instance. By default,
the OID will be treated as a wildcarded object, and the
monitor expanded to cover all matching instances.
-i OID
-o OID define additional varbinds to be added to the notifica‐
tion payload when this monitor trigger fires. For a
wildcarded expression, the suffix of the matched instance
will be added to any OIDs specified using -o, while OIDs
specified using -i will be treated as exact instances.
If the -I flag is specified, then there is no difference
between these two options.
See strictDisman for details of the ordering of notifica‐
tion payloads.
-r FREQUENCY
monitors the given expression every FREQUENCY seconds.
By default, the expression will be evaluated every 600s
(10 minutes).
-S indicates that the monitor expression should not be eval‐
uated when the agent first starts up. The first evalua‐
tion will be done once the first repeat interval has
expired.
-s indicates that the monitor expression should be evaluated
when the agent first starts up. This is the default be‐
haviour.
Note: Notifications triggered by this initial evaluation
will be sent before the coldStart trap.
-u SECNAME
specifies a security name to use for scanning the local
host, instead of the default iquerySecName. Once again,
this user must be explicitly created and given suitable
access rights.
notificationEvent ENAME NOTIFICATION [-m] [-i OID | -o OID ]*
defines a notification event named ENAME. This can be triggered
from a given monitor entry by specifying the option -e ENAME
(see above). NOTIFICATION should be the OID of the NOTIFICA‐
TION-TYPE definition for the notification to be generated.
If the -m option is given, the notification payload will include
the standard varbinds as specified in the OBJECTS clause of the
notification MIB definition. This option must come after the
NOTIFICATION OID (and the relevant MIB file must be available
and loaded by the agent). Otherwise, these varbinds must be
listed explicitly (either here or in the corresponding monitor
directive).
The -i OID and -o OID options specify additional varbinds to be
appended to the notification payload, after the standard list.
If the monitor entry that triggered this event involved a wild‐
carded expression, the suffix of the matched instance will be
added to any OIDs specified using -o, while OIDs specified using
-i will be treated as exact instances. If the -I flag was spec‐
ified to the monitor directive, then there is no difference
between these two options.
setEvent ENAME [-I] OID = VALUE
defines a set event named ENAME, assigning the (integer) VALUE
to the specified OID. This can be triggered from a given moni‐
tor entry by specifying the option -e ENAME (see above).
If the monitor entry that triggered this event involved a wild‐
carded expression, the suffix of the matched instance will nor‐
mally be added to the OID. If the -I flag was specified to
either of the monitor or setEvent directives, the specified OID
will be regarded as an exact single instance.
strictDisman yes
The definition of SNMP notifications states that the varbinds
defined in the OBJECT clause should come first (in the order
specified), followed by any "extra" varbinds that the notifica‐
tion generator feels might be useful. The most natural approach
would be to associate these mandatory varbinds with the notifi‐
cationEvent entry, and append any varbinds associated with the
monitor entry that triggered the notification to the end of this
list. This is the default behaviour of the Net-SNMP Event MIB
implementation.
Unfortunately, the DisMan Event MIB specifications actually
state that the trigger-related varbinds should come first, fol‐
lowed by the event-related ones. This directive can be used to
restore this strictly-correct (but inappropriate) behaviour.
Note: Strict DisMan ordering may result in generating invalid
notifications payload lists if the notificationEvent -n
flag is used together with monitor -o (or -i) varbind
options.
If no monitor entries specify payload varbinds, then the setting
of this directive is irrelevant.
linkUpDownNotifications yes
will configure the Event MIB tables to monitor the ifTable for
network interfaces being taken up or down, and triggering a
linkUp or linkDown notification as appropriate.
This is exactly equivalent to the configuration:
notificationEvent linkUpTrap linkUp ifIndex ifAdminStatus ifOperStatus
notificationEvent linkDownTrap linkDown ifIndex ifAdminStatus ifOperStatus
monitor -r 60 -e linkUpTrap "Generate linkUp" ifOperStatus != 2
monitor -r 60 -e linkDownTrap "Generate linkDown" ifOperStatus == 2
defaultMonitors yes
will configure the Event MIB tables to monitor the various UCD-
SNMP-MIB tables for problems (as indicated by the appropriate
xxErrFlag column objects).
This is exactly equivalent to the configuration:
monitor -o prNames -o prErrMessage "process table" prErrorFlag != 0
monitor -o memErrorName -o memSwapErrorMsg "memory" memSwapError != 0
monitor -o extNames -o extOutput "extTable" extResult != 0
monitor -o dskPath -o dskErrorMsg "dskTable" dskErrorFlag != 0
monitor -o laNames -o laErrMessage "laTable" laErrorFlag != 0
monitor -o fileName -o fileErrorMsg "fileTable" fileErrorFlag != 0
In both these latter cases, the snmpd.conf must also contain a iquery‐
SecName directive, together with a corresponding createUser entry and
suitable access control configuration.
DisMan Schedule MIB
The DisMan working group also produced a mechanism for scheduling par‐
ticular actions (a specified SET assignment) at given times. This
requires that the agent was built with support for the disman/schedule
module (which is included as part of the default build configuration
for the most recent distribution).
There are three ways of specifying the scheduled action:
repeat FREQUENCY OID = VALUE
configures a SET assignment of the (integer) VALUE to the MIB
instance OID, to be run every FREQUENCY seconds.
cron MINUTE HOUR DAY MONTH WEEKDAY OID = VALUE
configures a SET assignment of the (integer) VALUE to the MIB
instance OID, to be run at the times specified by the fields
MINUTE to WEEKDAY. These follow the same pattern as the equiva‐
lent crontab(5) fields.
Note: These fields should be specified as a (comma-separated)
list of numeric values. Named values for the MONTH and
WEEKDAY fields are not supported, and neither are value
ranges. A wildcard match can be specified as '*'.
The DAY field can also accept negative values, to indicate days
counting backwards from the end of the month.
at MINUTE HOUR DAY MONTH WEEKDAY OID = VALUE
configures a one-shot SET assignment, to be run at the first
matching time as specified by the fields MINUTE to WEEKDAY. The
interpretation of these fields is exactly the same as for the
cron directive.
EXTENDING AGENT FUNCTIONALITY
One of the first distinguishing features of the original UCD suite was
the ability to extend the functionality of the agent - not just by
recompiling with code for new MIB modules, but also by configuring the
running agent to report additional information. There are a number of
techniques to support this, including:
· running external commands (exec, extend, pass)
· loading new code dynamically (embedded perl, dlmod)
· communicating with other agents (proxy, SMUX, AgentX)
Arbitrary Extension Commands
The earliest extension mechanism was the ability to run arbitrary com‐
mands or shell scripts. Such commands do not need to be aware of SNMP
operations, or conform to any particular behaviour - the MIB structures
are designed to accommodate any form of command output. Use of this
mechanism requires that the agent was built with support for the ucd-
snmp/extensible and/or agent/extend modules (which are both included as
part of the default build configuration).
exec [MIBOID] NAME PROG ARGS
sh [MIBOID] NAME PROG ARGS
invoke the named PROG with arguments of ARGS. By default the
exit status and first line of output from the command will be
reported via the extTable, discarding any additional output.
Note: Entries in this table appear in the order they are read
from the configuration file. This means that adding new
exec (or sh) directives and restarting the agent, may
affect the indexing of other entries.
The PROG argument for exec directives must be a full path to a
real binary, as it is executed via the exec() system call. To
invoke a shell script, use the sh directive instead.
If MIBOID is specified, then the results will be rooted at this
point in the OID tree, returning the exit statement as
MIBOID.100.0 and the entire command output in a pseudo-table
based at MIBNUM.101 - with one 'row' for each line of output.
Note: The layout of this "relocatable" form of exec (or sh)
output does not strictly form a valid MIB structure.
This mechanism is being deprecated - please see the
extend directive (described below) instead.
The agent does not cache the exit status or output of the exe‐
cuted program.
execfix NAME PROG ARGS
registers a command that can be invoked on demand - typically to
respond to or fix errors with the corresponding exec or sh
entry. When the extErrFix instance for a given NAMEd entry is
set to the integer value of 1, this command will be called.
Note: This directive can only be used in combination with a
corresponding exec or sh directive, which must be defined
first. Attempting to define an unaccompanied execfix
directive will fail.
exec and sh extensions can only be configured via the snmpd.conf file.
They cannot be set up via SNMP SET requests.
extend [MIBOID] NAME PROG ARGS
works in a similar manner to the exec directive, but with a num‐
ber of improvements. The MIB tables (nsExtendConfigTable etc)
are indexed by the NAME token, so are unaffected by the order in
which entries are read from the configuration files. There are
two result tables - one (nsExtendOutput1Table) containing the
exit status, the first line and full output (as a single string)
for each extend entry, and the other (nsExtendOutput2Table) con‐
taining the complete output as a series of separate lines.
If MIBOID is specified, then the configuration and result tables
will be rooted at this point in the OID tree, but are otherwise
structured in exactly the same way. This means that several sep‐
arate extend directives can specify the same MIBOID root, with‐
out conflicting.
The exit status and output is cached for each entry individu‐
ally, and can be cleared (and the caching behaviour configured)
using the nsCacheTable.
extendfix NAME PROG ARGS
registers a command that can be invoked on demand, by setting
the appropriate nsExtendRunType instance to the value run-com‐
mand(3). Unlike the equivalent execfix, this directive does not
need to be paired with a corresponding extend entry, and can
appear on its own.
Both extend and extendfix directives can be configured dynamically,
using SNMP SET requests to the NET-SNMP-EXTEND-MIB.
MIB-Specific Extension Commands
The first group of extension directives invoke arbitrary commands, and
rely on the MIB structure (and management applications) having the
flexibility to accommodate and interpret the output. This is a conve‐
nient way to make information available quickly and simply, but is of
no use when implementing specific MIB objects, where the extension must
conform to the structure of the MIB (rather than vice versa). The
remaining extension mechanisms are all concerned with such MIB-specific
situations - starting with "pass-through" scripts. Use of this mecha‐
nism requires that the agent was built with support for the ucd-
snmp/pass and ucd-snmp/pass_persist modules (which are both included as
part of the default build configuration).
pass [-p priority] MIBOID PROG
will pass control of the subtree rooted at MIBOID to the speci‐
fied PROG command. GET and GETNEXT requests for OIDs within
this tree will trigger this command, called as:
PROG -g OID
PROG -n OID
respectively, where OID is the requested OID. The PROG command
should return the response varbind as three separate lines
printed to stdout - the first line should be the OID of the
returned value, the second should be its TYPE (one of the text
strings integer, gauge, counter, timeticks, ipaddress, objectid,
or string ), and the third should be the value itself.
If the command cannot return an appropriate varbind - e.g the
specified OID did not correspond to a valid instance for a GET
request, or there were no following instances for a GETNEXT -
then it should exit without producing any output. This will
result in an SNMP noSuchName error, or a noSuchInstance excep‐
tion.
Note: The SMIv2 type counter64 and SNMPv2 noSuchObject
exception are not supported.
A SET request will result in the command being called as:
PROG -s OID TYPE VALUE
where TYPE is one of the tokens listed above, indicating the
type of the value passed as the third parameter.
If the assignment is successful, the PROG command should exit
without producing any output. Errors should be indicated by
writing one of the strings not-writable, or wrong-type to std‐
out, and the agent will generate the appropriate error response.
Note: The other SNMPv2 errors are not supported.
In either case, the command should exit once it has finished
processing. Each request (and each varbind within a single
request) will trigger a separate invocation of the command.
The default registration priority is 127. This can be changed
by supplying the optional -p flag, with lower priority registra‐
tions being used in preference to higher priority values.
pass_persist [-p priority] MIBOID PROG
will also pass control of the subtree rooted at MIBOID to the
specified PROG command. However this command will continue to
run after the initial request has been answered, so subsequent
requests can be processed without the startup overheads.
Upon initialization, PROG will be passed the string "PING\n" on
stdin, and should respond by printing "PONG\n" to stdout.
For GET and GETNEXT requests, PROG will be passed two lines on
stdin, the command (get or getnext) and the requested OID. It
should respond by printing three lines to stdout - the OID for
the result varbind, the TYPE and the VALUE itself - exactly as
for the pass directive above. If the command cannot return an
appropriate varbind, it should print print "NONE\n" to stdout
(but continue running).
For SET requests, PROG will be passed three lines on stdin, the
command (set) and the requested OID, followed by the type and
value (both on the same line). If the assignment is successful,
the command should print "DONE\n" to stdout. Errors should be
indicated by writing one of the strings not-writable, wrong-
type, wrong-length, wrong-value or inconsistent-value to stdout,
and the agent will generate the appropriate error response. In
either case, the command should continue running.
The registration priority can be changed using the optional -p
flag, just as for the pass directive.
pass and pass_persist extensions can only be configured via the
snmpd.conf file. They cannot be set up via SNMP SET requests.
Embedded Perl Support
Programs using the previous extension mechanisms can be written in any
convenient programming language - including perl, which is a common
choice for pass-through extensions in particular. However the Net-SNMP
agent also includes support for embedded perl technology (similar to
mod_perl for the Apache web server). This allows the agent to inter‐
pret perl scripts directly, thus avoiding the overhead of spawning pro‐
cesses and initializing the perl system when a request is received.
Use of this mechanism requires that the agent was built with support
for the embedded perl mechanism, which is not part of the default build
environment. It must be explicitly included by specifying the
'--enable-embedded-perl' option to the configure script when the pack‐
age is first built.
If enabled, the following directives will be recognised:
disablePerl true
will turn off embedded perl support entirely (e.g. if there are
problems with the perl installation).
perlInitFile FILE
loads the specified initialisation file (if present) immediately
before the first perl directive is parsed. If not explicitly
specified, the agent will look for the default initialisation
file /usr/share/snmp/snmp_perl.pl.
The default initialisation file creates an instance of a Net‐
SNMP::agent object - a variable $agent which can be used to reg‐
ister perl-based MIB handler routines.
perl EXPRESSION
evaluates the given expression. This would typically register a
handler routine to be called when a section of the OID tree was
requested:
perl use Data::Dumper;
perl sub myroutine { print "got called: ",Dumper(@_),"\n"; }
perl $agent->register('mylink', '.1.3.6.1.8765', \&myroutine);
This expression could also source an external file:
perl 'do /path/to/file.pl';
or perform any other perl-based processing that might be
required.
Dynamically Loadable Modules
Most of the MIBs supported by the Net-SNMP agent are implemented as C
code modules, which were compiled and linked into the agent libraries
when the suite was first built. Such implementation modules can also
be compiled independently and loaded into the running agent once it has
started. Use of this mechanism requires that the agent was built with
support for the ucd-snmp/dlmod module (which is included as part of the
default build configuration).
dlmod NAME PATH
will load the shared object module from the file PATH (an abso‐
lute filename), and call the initialisation routine init_NAME.
Note: If the specified PATH is not a fully qualified filename,
it will be interpreted relative to /usr/lib/snmp/dlmod,
and .so will be appended to the filename.
This functionality can also be configured using SNMP SET requests to
the UCD-DLMOD-MIB.
Proxy Support
Another mechanism for extending the functionality of the agent is to
pass selected requests (or selected varbinds) to another SNMP agent,
which can be running on the same host (presumably listening on a dif‐
ferent port), or on a remote system. This can be viewed either as the
main agent delegating requests to the remote one, or acting as a proxy
for it. Use of this mechanism requires that the agent was built with
support for the ucd-snmp/proxy module (which is included as part of the
default build configuration).
proxy [-Cn CONTEXTNAME] [SNMPCMD_ARGS] HOST OID [REMOTEOID]
will pass any incoming requests under OID to the agent listening
on the port specified by the transport address HOST. See the
section LISTENING ADDRESSES in the snmpd(8) manual page for more
information about the format of listening addresses.
Note: To proxy the entire MIB tree, use the OID .1.3 (not the
top-level .1)
The SNMPCMD_ARGS should provide sufficient version and administrative
information to generate a valid SNMP request (see snmpcmd(1)).
Note: The proxied request will not use the administrative settings
from the original request.
If a CONTEXTNAME is specified, this will register the proxy delegation
within the named context in the local agent. Defining multiple proxy
directives for the same OID but different contexts can be used to query
several remote agents through a single proxy, by specifying the appro‐
priate SNMPv3 context in the incoming request (or using suitable con‐
figured community strings - see the com2sec directive).
Specifying the REMOID parameter will map the local MIB tree rooted at
OID to an equivalent subtree rooted at REMOID on the remote agent.
SMUX Sub-Agents
The Net-SNMP agent supports the SMUX protocol (RFC 1227) to communicate
with SMUX-based subagents (such as gated, zebra or quagga). Use of
this mechanism requires that the agent was built with support for the
smux module, which is not part of the default build environment, and
must be explicitly included by specifying the '--with-mib-modules=smux'
option to the configure script when the package is first built.
Note: This extension protocol has been officially deprecated in
favour of AgentX (see below).
smuxpeer OID PASS
will register a subtree for SMUX-based processing, to be authen‐
ticated using the password PASS. If a subagent (or "peer") con‐
nects to the agent and registers this subtree then requests for
OIDs within it will be passed to that SMUX subagent for process‐
ing.
A suitable entry for an OSPF routing daemon (such as gated,
zebra or quagga) might be something like
smuxpeer .1.3.6.1.2.1.14 ospf_pass
smuxsocket <IPv4-address>
defines the IPv4 address for SMUX peers to communicate with the
Net-SNMP agent. The default is to listen on all IPv4 interfaces
("0.0.0.0"), unless the package has been configured with
"--enable-local-smux" at build time, which causes it to only
listen on 127.0.0.1 by default. SMUX uses the well-known TCP
port 199.
Note the Net-SNMP agent will only operate as a SMUX master agent. It
does not support acting in a SMUX subagent role.
AgentX Sub-Agents
The Net-SNMP agent supports the AgentX protocol (RFC 2741) in both mas‐
ter and subagent roles. Use of this mechanism requires that the agent
was built with support for the agentx module (which is included as part
of the default build configuration), and also that this support is
explicitly enabled (e.g. via the snmpd.conf file).
There are two directives specifically relevant to running as an AgentX
master agent:
master agentx
will enable the AgentX functionality and cause the agent to
start listening for incoming AgentX registrations. This can
also be activated by specifying the '-x' command-line option (to
specify an alternative listening socket).
agentXPerms SOCKPERMS [DIRPERMS [USER|UID [GROUP|GID]]]
Defines the permissions and ownership of the AgentX Unix Domain
socket, and the parent directories of this socket. SOCKPERMS
and DIRPERMS must be octal digits (see chmod(1) ). By default
this socket will only be accessible to subagents which have the
same userid as the agent.
There is one directive specifically relevant to running as an AgentX
sub-agent:
agentXPingInterval NUM
will make the subagent try and reconnect every NUM seconds to
the master if it ever becomes (or starts) disconnected.
The remaining directives are relevant to both AgentX master and sub-
agents:
agentXSocket [<transport-specifier>:]<transport-address>[,...]
defines the address the master agent listens at, or the subagent
should connect to. The default is the Unix Domain socket
AGENTX_SOCKET. Another common alternative is tcp:localhost:705.
See the section LISTENING ADDRESSES in the snmpd(8) manual page
for more information about the format of addresses.
Note: Specifying an AgentX socket does not automatically enable
AgentX functionality (unlike the '-x' command-line
option).
agentXTimeout NUM
defines the timeout period (NUM seconds) for an AgentX request.
Default is 1 second.
agentXRetries NUM
defines the number of retries for an AgentX request. Default is
5 retries.
net-snmp ships with both C and Perl APIs to develop your own AgentX
subagent.
OTHER CONFIGURATION
override [-rw] OID TYPE VALUE
This directive allows you to override a particular OID with a
different value (and possibly a different type of value). The
-rw flag will allow snmp SETs to modify it's value as well.
(note that if you're overriding original functionality, that
functionality will be entirely lost. Thus SETS will do nothing
more than modify the internal overridden value and will not per‐
form any of the original functionality intended to be provided
by the MIB object. It's an emulation only.) An example:
override sysDescr.0 octet_str "my own sysDescr"
That line will set the sysDescr.0 value to "my own sysDescr" as
well as make it modifiable with SNMP SETs as well (which is
actually illegal according to the MIB specifications).
Note that care must be taken when using this. For example, if
you try to override a property of the 3rd interface in the
ifTable with a new value and later the numbering within the
ifTable changes it's index ordering you'll end up with problems
and your modified value won't appear in the right place in the
table.
Valid TYPEs are: integer, uinteger, octet_str, object_id,
counter, null (for gauges, use "uinteger"; for bit strings, use
"octet_str"). Note that setting an object to "null" effectively
delete's it as being accessible. No VALUE needs to be given if
the object type is null.
More types should be available in the future.
If you're trying to figure out aspects of the various mib modules (pos‐
sibly some that you've added yourself), the following may help you spit
out some useful debugging information. First off, please read the
snmpd manual page on the -D flag. Then the following configuration
snmpd.conf token, combined with the -D flag, can produce useful output:
injectHandler HANDLER modulename
This will insert new handlers into the section of the mib tree
referenced by "modulename". The types of handlers available for
insertion are:
stash_cache
Caches information returned from the lower level. This
greatly help the performance of the agent, at the cost of
caching the data such that its no longer "live" for 30
seconds (in this future, this will be configurable).
Note that this means snmpd will use more memory as well
while the information is cached. Currently this only
works for handlers registered using the table_iterator
support, which is only a few mib tables. To use it, you
need to make sure to install it before the table_iterator
point in the chain, so to do this:
injectHandler stash_cache NAME ta‐
ble_iterator
If you want a table to play with, try walking the nsMod‐
uleTable with and without this injected.
debug Prints out lots of debugging information when the
-Dhelper:debug flag is passed to the snmpd application.
read_only
Forces turning off write support for the given module.
serialize
If a module is failing to handle multiple requests prop‐
erly (using the new 5.0 module API), this will force the
module to only receive one request at a time.
bulk_to_next
If a module registers to handle getbulk support, but for
some reason is failing to implement it properly, this
module will convert all getbulk requests to getnext
requests before the final module receives it.
dontLogTCPWrappersConnects
If the snmpd was compiled with TCP Wrapper support, it logs
every connection made to the agent. This setting disables the
log messages for accepted connections. Denied connections will
still be logged.
Figuring out module names
To figure out which modules you can inject things into, run snm‐
pwalk on the nsModuleTable which will give a list of all named
modules registered within the agent.
Internal Data tables
table NAME
add_row NAME INDEX(ES)VALUE(S)NOTES
o The Net-SNMP agent can be instructed to re-read the various con‐
figuration files, either via an snmpset assignment of integer(1)
to UCD-SNMP-MIB::versionUpdateConfig.0
(.1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.100.11.0), or by sending a kill -HUP signal
to the agent process.
o All directives listed with a value of "yes" actually accept a
range of boolean values. These will accept any of 1, yes or
true to enable the corresponding behaviour, or any of 0, no or
false to disable it. The default in each case is for the fea‐
ture to be turned off, so these directives are typically only
used to enable the appropriate behaviour.
EXAMPLE CONFIGURATION FILE
See the EXAMPLE.CONF file in the top level source directory for a more
detailed example of how the above information is used in real examples.
FILES
/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
SEE ALSOsnmpconf(1), snmpusm(1), snmp.conf(5), snmp_config(5), snmpd(8), EXAM‐
PLE.conf, netsnmp_config_api(3).
V5.6 30 Jun 2010 SNMPD.CONF(5)
