Essential SNMP is a practical introduction to SNMP for network and system administrators. It starts with the basics of SNMP and how it works, along with the technical background to use it effectively. The book covers OIDs, MIBs, community strings, traps, and other technical elements. But the main focus is on practical network administration: how to configure SNMP agents and network management stations, how to use SNMP to retrieve and modify variables on network devices, how to configure management software to react to traps sent by managed devices.

Essential SNMP explores both commercial and open source packages, including HP's OpenView, Castle Rock's SNMPc, the Net-SNMP tools, Simon Leinen's Perl SNMP support, and MRTG. Administrators will come away with ideas for writing scripts to help them manage their networks, create managed objects, and extend the operation of SNMP agents. In addition to SNMPv1 and v2, the book covers SNMPv3, which has just started to appear in commercial products as of this printing.

Contents

Preface

1. What Is SNMP?
     Network Management and Monitoring
     RFCs and SNMP Versions
     Managers and Agents
     The Structure of Management Information and MIBS
     Host Management
     A Brief Introduction to Remote Monitoring (RMON)
     Getting More Information

2. A Closer Look at SNMP
     SNMP and UDP
     SNMP Communities
     The Structure of Management Information
     Extensions to the SMI in Version 2
     A Closer Look at MIB-II
     SNMP Operations
     Host Management Revisited
     Remote Monitoring Revisited

3. NMS Architectures
     Hardware Considerations
     NMS Architectures
     A Look Ahead

4. SNMP-Compatible Hardware
     What Does SNMP-Compatible Really Mean?
     Is My Device SNMP-Compatible?
     Upgrading Your Hardware
     In the End
     A Look Ahead

5. Network-Management Software
     SNMP Agents
     NMS Suites
     Element Managers (Vendor-Specific Management)
     Trend Analysis
     Supporting Software

6. Configuring Your NMS
     HP's OpenView Network Node Manager
     Castle Rock's SNMPc Enterprise Edition

7. Configuring SNMP Agents
     Parameter Settings
     Security Concerns
     Agent Configuration Walkthroughs

8. Polling and Setting
     Retrieving a Single MIB Value
     Retrieving Multiple MIB Values
     Setting a MIB Value
     Error Responses

9. Polling and Thresholds
     Internal Polling
     External Polling

10. Traps
     Understanding Traps
     Receiving Traps
     Sending Traps

11. Extensible SNMP Agents
     Net-SNMP
     SystemEDGE
     OpenView's Extensible Agent

12. Adapting SNMP to Fit Your Environment
     General Trap-Generation Program
     Who's Logging into My Machine? (I-Am-in)
     Throw Core
     Veritas Disk Check
     Disk-Space Checker
     Port Monitor

13. MRTG
     Using MRTG
     Viewing Graphs
     Graphing Other Objects
     Other Data-Gathering Applications
     Pitfalls
     Getting Help

A. Using Input and Output Octets

B. More on OpenView's NNM

C. Net-SNMP Tools

D. SNMP RFCs

E. SNMP Support for Perl

F. SNMPv3

Index