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Telestra App Note

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) For Telestra 3 and Telestra (#79)

Introduction

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application layer protocol defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The basic goal of SNMP is to monitor network devices such as a printers, LAN switches, routers or in this case the Telestra. This allows a network administrator or equivalent to remotely monitor a platform or platforms using a common protocol.

SNMP uses a manager/agent model that consists of the following core components:

  • SNMP Manager provides the user interface between the end user (i.e. Network Admin) and the management system
  • SNMP Agent (i.e. The Telestra) provides the necessary data to the SNMP Manager as defined in the MIB
  • Database of Management Information Bases (MIBs) describe the hierarchies of accessible variables via SNMP, and other metatdata (such as type and description of the variable).

    MIBs describe the structure of the management data of a device subsystem; they use a hierarchical namespace containing object identifiers (OID). Roughly speaking, each OID identifies a variable that can be read or set via SNMP.

  • Network Protocol is defined by define SNMP v1, v2 and v3

For more background information on SNMP refer to the Net-SNMP website.

Skip to Telestra 3 Support for SNMP

Telestra Support for SNMP

Telestra Software Requirements: 4.3-2 or later for RHEL5 based OS
Telestra Software Requirements: 6.2.0 or later for RHEL6 based OS
SNMP Protocol Version: 5.3.1+ (RHEL5), 5.5 (RHEL6)
MIBs Supported: Refer to /usr/share/snmp/mibs

The SNMP daemon(s) will not automatically startup on the Telestra platform. To start the SNMP daemon(s) see instructions below. SNMP management of the Telestra platform is performed on an external non-ASTi provided platform. Consult that platforms documentation for configuration and setup.

Login to the Telestra as root and start the SNMP through the command line as follows:

Start the SNMP Daemon:

/etc/init.d/snmpd start

Stop the SNMP Daemon:

/etc/init.d/snmpd stop

Start the SNMP Trap Daemon:

/etc/init.d/snmptrapd start

Stop the SNMP Trap Daemon:

/etc/init.d/snmptrapd stop

If you want to automatically start SNMP on boot-up, run the following commands from the command line:

chkconfig --level 4 snmpd on
chkconfig --level 4 snmptrapd on

To verify that the snmpd and snmptrapd will start on boot-up, run the following commands from the command line:

chkconfig --list snmpd
chkconfig --list snmptrapd

You should see 'on' next to level 4.

For Secure Telestra systems an additional step is required. As root you must add the following line to the /etc/hosts.allow file.

snmpd: localhost

For a complete list of commands type ls -l /usr/bin | grep snmp. Refer to the man pages for an explanation of each command. The details of those commands are outside the scope of this application note. However, as an example run the following at the command line:

snmpwalk -v 1 -c public localhost system
snmpwalk -v 2c -c public localhost system
snmpget -v 2c  -c public localhost system.sysName.0
snmpget -v 2c  -c public localhost system.sysUpTime.0

SNMP v3 is supported, however it requires additional setup, which is outside the scope of this Application Note. Secure Telestra systems may also disable SNMP v1 or v2 via snmpd.conf hence either file modification against security regulations is required or v3 should be setup. The main configuration file that controls the SNMP configuration is:

Control the configuration of the SNMP Daemon Agent:

/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

Consult RHEL and/or SNMP documentation and man pages for further information on SNMP configuration, setup, and usage.

Telestra 3 Support for SNMP

Telestra Software Requirements: 3.30-1 or later
SNMP Protocol Version (3.30-1 thru 3.39-1): 5.0.7
SNMP Protocol Version (3.40-1 or later): 5.1.2
MIBs Supported: Refer to /usr/share/snmp/mibs

The SNMP daemon automatically starts on the Telestra 3 platform. SNMP management of the Telestra 3 platform is performed on an external non-ASTi provided platform. Consult that platforms documentation for configuration and setup.

For local testing and verification of SNMP support, there are several SNMP commands that run locally on the Telestra platform. These commands are located in /usr/bin. For a complete list of commands type ls -l /usr/bin | grep snmp. Refer to man pages for an explanation of each command. The details of those commands are outside the scope of this application note. However, as an example run the following at the command line:

snmpwalk -v 1 -c public localhost system
snmpwalk -v 2c -c public localhost system
snmpget -v 2c  -c public localhost system.sysName.0
snmpget -v 2c -c public localhost system.sysUpTime.0

SNMP v3 is supported, however it requires additional setup, which is outside the scope of this AP Note. There are three main configuration files that control the SNMP configuration:

Control the configuration of the SNMP Daemon Agent:

/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

Control the activity of the snmpd and snmptrapd:

/etc/default/snmpd

Control the configuration of the snmptrapd agent:

/etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf

Consult Debian OS and/or SNMP documentation and man pages for further information on SNMP configuration, setup, and usage.


SNMP is currently not supported on the Telestra 2 platform. Contact ASTi about upgrade options to Telestra.