SNMP Discovery

Overview

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application-layer protocol defined by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) for exchanging management information between network devices. It is a part of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP⁄IP) suite.

SNMP is one of the widely accepted protocols to manage and monitor network elements. Most of the professional-grade network elements come with bundled SNMP agent. These agents have to be enabled and configured to communicate with the network management system (NMS). The SNMP agent is a program that resides on your managed device, packaged within the network element. You have to enable it on your device. It collects the management information from the device locally and provides it to the SNMP manager. These agents could be standard, for example, Net-SNMP or specific to a vendor, such as HP Insight Agent.

SNMP Credentials

SNMP uses a password-like authorization known as a community string. When you provide an SNMP credential to a device, it checks to see if the community string matches the community string configured on the device. If the string matches, the device responds to the SNMP query.

Discover the gateway using SNMP

To find the read-only gateway community string, one option is to:

1. Log into the gateway WebUI.
2. Click SNMP.

Or, you can get the read-only community string by logging into the gateway and reading the string in the /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf file.

You can change the community string to a name of your choice.

Multi-credential functionality

SNMP multi-credential functionality allows you to discover network resources using multiple credentials using a single discovery profile. You can create or use multiple credential sets if you are using a gateway to discover your resources.

For example, a printer uses SNMPv2c credential type and a Cisco router uses SNMPv3 credential type. In such a case, you need to create two discovery profiles. With SNMP multi-credential functionality, you can create one discovery profile and use both the credential sets.

The gateway discovers devices with the credentials, sequentially, as the credentials were entered when a Discovery Profile was created at the time of the first scan. After successful discovery, the gateway remembers resources and their credentials for subsequent discovery.

Multi-credentialed, SNMP-enabled devices have the following advantages:

• Reduces the effort of creating multiple discovery profiles.
• Reduces time for manually traversing through multiple discovery profiles to discover a network resource.
• Scans and discovers a subnet with multiple SNMP community strings.
• Discovers network resources working on different SNMP versions.

SNMP field values

The following provides information on configuring the SNMP fields for creating an SNMP credential set.

SNMPv1 and SNMPv2

SNMPv3

SNMPv3 is a user-based security model. It provides secure access to the devices by combining authenticating and encrypting packets over the network. The security features provided in SNMPv3 are message integrity, authentication, and encryption.

Configure and Install an SNMP Integration

1. From All Client, select a client.

2. Go to Setup > Integrations and Apps.

3. From Available Integrations, select Network > SNMP.

   Note: You may also search for the integration from the INTEGRATION LIST

   

4. From the Configurations page, click + ADD.

   

   
   

   The Add Configuration page appears.

   

5. In the Add Configuration, enter the below details in the Basic Information section:

   • Name: Enter the name for the integration.
   • SNMP Credentials: Select the credentials from the drop-down list. Click + ADD to create a new credential.
   • Discovery Type: Select the discovery type from the list: IP Range or Seed.
   • IP Range: Provide the IP address.
     Example: You can enter 172.25.23.123 as an IP range value.

6. Perform Actions: Select the Manage Device checkbox, to manage the devices. The +Query option is displayed.

   • Use queries to filter the resources you want to manage.
     Note: If you do not select the Manage Device option, the devices will be in the discovered state.

7. In the Discovery Schedule section, select Recurrence Pattern to add one of the following patterns:

   • None: Select this option, If you don’t want to schedule the discovery.
   • Hourly: Select this option, If you want to apply the discovery on hourly basis. You can configure this option by choosing: Every hour.
   • Daily: Select this option, If you want to apply the discovery daily. You can configure this option by choosing: Every Weekday (Mon-Friday) or Everyday.
   • Weekly: Select this option, If you want to apply the discovery on a weekly basis. Configure weekly schedule by selecting: Time preference, Starting date, and Days.
   • Monthly: Select this option if you only want to apply discovery on a monthly basis. Configure this by selecting: Time preference, Starting date, and number of days in a month.

8. Click ADD.
   Now the integration is saved and displayed on the configurations page after you save it. From the same page, you are able to Edit and Remove the created integration.
   

   

9. Click Next. The Installation page is displayed.

11. From the SELECT GATEWAY COLLECTOR PROFILE listing:
    • Create a new collector by providing a new name or use the pre-populated name.
    • Select a collector from the existing list.
12. Click Finish.
    The integration or application is now installed and displayed on the Installed Integration page. Use the search field to find the installed application.
    

Modify an Installed Integration or App

1. Click the SNMP integration or app. A list of installed integrations is displayed with the following information:
   

   

   • Name - Displays the name of the integration or app.

   • Collector Profile - Displays the name of the collector profile.

   • Status - Displays the status of the collector profile. The status is a combination of both the gateway and application.
     For example, if the gateway status is up and the application status is installed, then the status is Running.

     Gateway Status	Application Status
     	Installed	Enabled
     Up	Running	Running
     Down	Stopped	Stopped
     Not Installed/ Deployed/Registered	Configured	Configured

   • Added On - Displays the date and time details of the added integration or app. The user icon next to the time indicates the user who added the app.

   • The following options are available in the three dot menu:

     • Edit: To edit an integration, click this button.
     • Copy Id: To copy an integration id, click this button.
     • Uninstall: To uninstall an integration, click this button.

Edit an integration

1. Click Edit from the three dot menu or click the name of the integration.
   The Configurations window is displayed with a list of available configurations specific to the selected integration.
2. Click the three dot symbol available for the configuration and click Edit.
3. In the Edit Configuration window that appears, edit the configuration and click Update.

Device discovery:

• Click the three dots available for the configuration and click Discover. A discovery is initiated and the status is displayed in the Discovery status column.

The number of devices that are discovered are displayed in the Devices column.

• Click the hyperlink to view the discovered devices.

Other Details like Name, Discovery status, Last discovery time, UID and Enabled are displayed.

• Name: Name of the configuration.
• Discovery status: Status of the discovery like Completed, Queued and
  In Progress.
• Last discovery time: The last discovery date and time.
• UID: Configuration UID.
• Enabled: Enable or disable the configuration. When it is Disabled, discovery does not happen.

Note: The above columns vary based on the integration.

Assign templates

You can assign templates to the devices.

To assign templates:

1. Click the hyperlink in the Devices column to view the discovered devices.
2. Click the resource name.
3. From the slide-out, click the three dots available at the upper-right corner.
4. Click View details. The resource details page is displayed.
5. From the monitors tab, assign the templates.

You can view graphs from the Metrics tab.

The device states are also shown in the resources listing page.

Discovered: The Discovered state is shown if a device is only discovered.

Active: The Active state is shown if a device is managed.

Copy an integration id

• Click the three dot menu available for the integration and click Copy Id.
  The integration id is copied.
  

Uninstall an integration

1. Click the three dot menu available for the integration and click Uninstall.
2. In the Uninstall Integration window that appears, mention the reason for uninstalling and click Uninstall.
   The configuration is uninstalled.

Modify a configuration

Configurations are available for each integration. The following actions can be performed on the configurations from the three dot menu next to each configuration:

• Edit: To edit a configuration, click this button.
• Remove: To remove a configuration, click this button.
• Discover: To discover a configuration, click this button.

Edit a configuration

1. Click Edit from the three dot menu of a configuration.

2. In the Edit Configuration window that appears, edit the configuration and click Update.

   You can also uninstall multiple configurations at the same time. Select configurations from the list in the Edit SNMP page and click Uninstall at the top right.
   You can also add a new configuration from the Edit SNMP page by clicking the Add button.

   

Remove a configuration

1. Click Remove from the three dot menu of a configuration that you want to remove. A confirmation message appears.

2. Click Delete to remove the configuration. Click Cancel to go back.

   Note

   When you remove a configuration, the resources associated with that configuration are also deleted.

Discover a configuration

• Click the three dot menu available for the configuration and click Discover.
  A discovery is initiated and the status is displayed under the Discovery status column.

SNMP Definition Requests

You can view and submit SNMP definitions for review.

Only Service Provider (SP) and partner-level users can submit SNMP definition requests. All user levels, including SP, partner, and client, can view existing definitions.

View SNMP definition requests

1. Go to Setup > Resources.
2. Click SNMP Device Type Definitions. This displays the list of available definitions, as shown in the example:

Submit SNMP definition request

1. Go to Setup > Resources.

2. Click SNMP Device Type Definitions.

3. Click the +Submit button.

4. In the Add SNMP Device Type Definition page, enter the following information:

   Device Type Definition:

   Field	Required	Description
   Object OID	Yes	Object identifier.
   Make	Yes	Choose the make from the drop-down list.
   Model	No	If you selected Model, choose the model from the drop-down list.
   Model OID	No	If you selected Model OID, enter a model identifier.
   Device Type	Yes	Choose a device type from the drop-down list.
   Operating System	Yes	Choose an operating system from the drop-down list.
   Serial Number OID	No	Serial number identifier.
   Firmware Revision OID	No	Firmware revision identifier.
   Hardware Revision OID	No	Hardware revision identifier.
   Software Revision OID	No	Software revision identifier.

   SNMP OIDs for Network Interface Information:

   Field	Required
   Number of Interfaces	No
   Name	No
   Alias	No
   Index	No
   Type	No
   Speed	No
   Operational Status	No
   Admin Status	No

5. Click Cancel to discard your definition or click Submit, which displays the following advisory message:

   This definition will reflect on devices only after it is reviewed by a vistara admin. You can check the status on the definition listing page.

6. Click Yes to continue and submit your definition for review.