I’m need to setup a linux box with nagios in order to use it to monitor some windows servers with SNMP.
I’ve followed several howto’s but none seems to work for me. The last one that I used is the one from samag.com/documents/s=9559/sam0503g/ but get the same result, it doesn’t work.
The idea is to be able to monitor processor and memory usage, disk space without using the nagios client.
If you have an idea of how to do this, please let me know. I have been working on this for weeks.
why don’t you want to use the client? Is there a particular reason?
You need something which works out the SNMP stuff anyway… in this way one is like the other… and ntclient gives you access to all values you find in the performance monitor…
I feel his pain. People want the stuff to be monitored, but they don’t want you to touch the equipment. If he is forced to use snmp, then he still has to setup all the snmpd configs, which I have found to be harder that simply setting up some nagios client.
Fortunately, nagios has proven itself in our company to be indespensible, so I get very little static any longer when I ask to setup a client connection. You have an uphill battle my friend and I hope you come out of it OK.
[quote=“luca”]why don’t you want to use the client? Is there a particular reason?
You need something which works out the SNMP stuff anyway… in this way one is like the other… and ntclient gives you access to all values you find in the performance monitor…
Luca[/quote]
Hi Luca,
Thanks for your response. I cannot use the client because I will only have access to the windows boxes using SNMP. I’ll not be able to install any piece of software on any of the servers, That’s the reason because I need to work with SNMP and not with the client!.
[quote=“jakkedup”]I feel his pain. People want the stuff to be monitored, but they don’t want you to touch the equipment. If he is forced to use snmp, then he still has to setup all the snmpd configs, which I have found to be harder that simply setting up some nagios client.
Fortunately, nagios has proven itself in our company to be indespensible, so I get very little static any longer when I ask to setup a client connection. You have an uphill battle my friend and I hope you come out of it OK.[/quote]
That’s right, I can’t use the client and can’t modify the servers. So the only way to go that I have is SNMP!.
teh server will need to be modified for fetching data via SNMP… I never used microsofts SNMP but i think there wiull be some configuration needed. Ask the servers administrators to setup SNMP as you like it
yup yup. it’s going to be more work, and most likely alot more software will be installed when setting up snmpd on a windows box. Good luck, but I have little experience in setting up snmpd in windows.
Hi, I’ve got the snmptt/Nagios system discussed in samag.com/documents/s=9559/sam0503g/ working
pretty well. I used the MIB convert tool to create a .conf file and then used some REGEX directives to format the messages to go straight in to the Nagio command file, and the passive services are working well. I do intend to install SEC referred to in the document (I already use it on my syslog server), but unless you have a serious need for it, I would leave it until later. What problems did you have with it specifically?
Is your main concern doing snmp gets, or responding to snmp traps?
I’m not much of a server man, but last time I played with the Compaq/HP SNMP stuff it seemed to work ok.
Hi, I’ve got the snmptt/Nagios system discussed in samag.com/documents/s=9559/sam0503g/ working
pretty well. I used the MIB convert tool to create a .conf file and then used some REGEX directives to format the messages to go straight in to the Nagio command file, and the passive services are working well. I do intend to install SEC referred to in the document (I already use it on my syslog server), but unless you have a serious need for it, I would leave it until later. What problems did you have with it specifically?
Is your main concern doing snmp gets, or responding to snmp traps?
I’m not much of a server man, but last time I played with the Compaq/HP SNMP stuff it seemed to work ok.
Hi, I’ve got the snmptt/Nagios system discussed in samag.com/documents/s=9559/sam0503g/ working
pretty well. I used the MIB convert tool to create a .conf file and then used some REGEX directives to format the messages to go straight in to the Nagio command file, and the passive services are working well. I do intend to install SEC referred to in the document (I already use it on my syslog server), but unless you have a serious need for it, I would leave it until later. What problems did you have with it specifically?
Is your main concern doing snmp gets, or responding to snmp traps?
I’m not much of a server man, but last time I played with the Compaq/HP SNMP stuff it seemed to work ok.
Hi, I’ve got the snmptt/Nagios system discussed in samag.com/documents/s=9559/sam0503g/ working
pretty well. I used the MIB convert tool to create a .conf file and then used some REGEX directives to format the messages to go straight in to the Nagio command file, and the passive services are working well. I do intend to install SEC referred to in the document (I already use it on my syslog server), but unless you have a serious need for it, I would leave it until later. What problems did you have with it specifically?
Is your main concern doing snmp gets, or responding to snmp traps?
I’m not much of a server man, but last time I played with the Compaq/HP SNMP stuff it seemed to work ok.
Thanks for the response sorry for my delay!. The idea is to ask the servers the if “X” server is running, or the ammount of memory that it’s being utilized, so I figure out that this are “snmp gets”.
Can you post here your configuration files in order to let me figure out how are you doing this? or can you explain me how are you monitoring your resources?
SNMP monitoring with Windows boxes is pretty easy, once you get a handle on how SNMP works.
On the Windows machine you want to monitor, make sure SNMP is installed. You should see it as a service in Computer Management. If it’s not installed, go to Add/Remove Programs > Add/Remove Windows Components > Management and Monitoring Tools. (No reboot required on XP, 2000, or 2003).
Then open the SNMP service and add or modify the SNMP community name on the Security tab and add the Nagios machine’s hostname or IP address under the “Accept SNMP packets from these hosts” section. Click OK and the Windoze box is ready to be monitored.
In Nagios, you need some SNMP plugins. There are quite a few good ones in the Nagios Exchange. The ones I use the most are the check_snmp and check_netsnmp plugins (2 different authors). Follow the docs with these plugins to figure out syntax.
Then in Nagios, just create services that call those plugins to monitor the mibs you need.
If you need any further help, you can post back or contact me at the email address in my profile.
BlackWyng, thanks for that. I looks to be very easy to setup. Do you know the MIB names that are needed or used the most on the nagios machine to get the oid’s from?
For example: to monitor an interface port the oid is .1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.8 and found in MIB RFC1213-MIB. What would be the MIB for memory, cpu usage, and perhaps disc space?
That depends on the plugin you’re using to monitor.
The netsnmp plugin takes arguments of -C (community name), -H (hostname or IP) and -o (OID or symbolic name). For example, the syntax for getting the CPU load would be check_netsnmp -C public -H localhost -o load. This plugin only accepts load, proc, disk and swap as names, but any OID will work.
check_snmp plugin uses the same syntax and arguments, but accespts any names that are in the MIB tree.
Get yourself a MIB browser (Google for Getif -it’s free), and run SNMP walks on the hosts you want to monitor. Getif will bring back a list of available OIDs and symbolic names. Keep in mind that some OIDs, such as sysUpTime are incomplete, so you need to add .0 to the end of the name. Lots of good SNMP info is in the man pages and tutorials at net-snmp.sourceforge.net
