SNMP configuration example

Technology: Management & Monitoring
Area: SNMP
Vendor: Cisco
Software: 12.X , 15.X, IP Base, IP Services, LAN Base
Platform: Catalyst 2960-X, Catalyst 3560, ISR Routers

Simple Network Management Protocol allows network administrators to monitor the state of network devices. Devices use SNMP trap messages which are sent to the monitoring server which in turn can graph and analyze state of interfaces, routing protocols events, monitor thresholds for resources like CPU or memory. Another type of SNMP messages are SNMP GET and SET messages. With GET message you can configure the network monitoring servers (SNMP Servers) to pool the devices and retrieve current information like current cpu utilization or interface load. SET message allows to configure particular features of the device from monitoring and management server. Let’s take a look at SNMP configuration example.

To enable SNMP traps, use below configuration. The 10.10.10.1, .2 and .3 are IP addresses of SNMP servers to which traps will be sent,  GML@BS is the community string that has to be common on SNMP servers and device.

Router(config)#snmp-server enable traps
Router(config)#snmp-server host 10.10.10.1 GML@BS cpu
Router(config)#snmp-server host 10.10.10.2 GML@BS memory
Router(config)#snmp-server host 10.10.10.3 GML@BS ospf bgp

To enable GET and SET messaging from servers you need to configure RO (for GET) and RW (for GET and SET) commands along with communities.

Router(config)#snmp-server community GML@BS RO
Router(config)#snmp-server community GML@BS RW