SNMP Monitoring Guidelines
ActiveXperts Network Monitor and SNMP
ActiveXperts Network Monitor supports the following SNMP features:
- Monitoring through SNMP Get operations - Query devices, workstations, servers and more;
- Monitoring through SNMP Receive operation - Receive SNMP Traps from devices or 3rd party software programs;
- SNMP MIB Browsing to select relevant SNMP counters to be monitred with ActiveXperts;
- Notifications through SNMP Traps - Send SNMP trap notifications to (remote) SNMP management stations.
ActiveXperts and Windows SNMP Services
The following SNMP Services are available in Windows. These services are not installed out-of-the-box, but can be installed optionally through the 'Add Features Wizard':
- SNMP Service
- SNMP Trap Service
IMPORTANT: ActiveXperts Network Monitor does NOT depend on the above two services. It is no problem to have the above services running, except if you want to receive SNMP Trap notifications through ActiveXperts. If the Windows SNMP Trap service is running, ActiveXperts cannot listen to the SNMP Trap port (by default, UDP/162), and as a result, SNMP traps cannot be received.
Testing and Troubleshooting
To troubleshoot SNMP, use the SNMP Diagnostic Utilities that come with ActiveXperts Network Monitor.
About SNMP
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application protocol offering network management services in the Internet Protocol suite. SNMP is defined in several RFCs published beginning in 1990. During the last few years SNMP has been adopted by numerous vendors of network equipment as a main or secondary management interface.
SNMP defines a client/server relationship. The client program (called the network manager) makes virtual connections to a server program (called the SNMP agent) executing on a remote network device. The data base controlled by the SNMP agent is referred to as the SNMP Management Information Base (MIB), and is a standard set of statistical and control values. SNMP additionally allows the extension of these standard values with values specific to a particular agent through the use of private MIBs.
Directives, issued by the network manager client to an SNMP agent, consist of the identifiers of SNMP variables (referred to as MIB object identifiers or MIB variables) along with instructions to either get the value for the identifier, or set the identifier to a new value.