SNMPPOLL(1) — NEWS-OS Programmer’s Manual

NAME

snmppoll − generic SNMP querying application for multiple agents

SYNOPSIS

snmppoll configfile

DESCRIPTION

snmppoll is a generic querying application designed to execute on a host and query any number of monitoring agents for information over an extended period of time. What information is requested, from which gateway, and how often the information is requested are all dictated by the snmppoll configuration file configfile (described below). snmppoll is an application process, that allows the querying granularity at the level of both agents and variables by means of specifying multipliers to a (user configurable base interval). (See configuration file description below). So, for example, with a base interval of X seconds, querying of a given agent with interval multiplier Y for a variable with interval multiplier Z will occur every X ∗ Y ∗ Z seconds. Currently, all snmppoll output is logged to UNIX flat files.

SNMPPOLL CONFIGURATION FILE

The snmppoll configuration file is consulted upon startup of an snmppoll process. Fields in the configuration file are used to determine the base interval for querying, monitoring agents to be queried, how often each agent is to be queried, how often each variable should be queried for, and what is to be done with the variable values returned. The general format of the configuration file is an AGENT line (see below) followed by a list of LOG and WATCH lines (each corresponding to a variable to be queried for at the monitoring agent specified by the AGENT line), with this grouping of AGENT, LOG and WATCH lines repeated for each monitoring agent. Options in the configuration file are:

BASE interval: set the base querying interval for this invocation of the application to interval seconds. The interval must be specified in seconds, and a line of this form must occur at least once in the configuration file. In the event that multiple lines of this form are found in a single configuration file, the last one will be taken.

AGENT ipadd community-name agent-multiplier timeout retries: query the monitoring agent at ip address ipadd using community name community-name. Perform querying of this agent every agent-multiplier base intervals. During queries, set the query timeout interval (after which retransmission occurs) to timeout seconds, and retry query transmissions retries times. agent-multiplier, timeout and retries are all integers, and are constrained to be less than 2∗∗31 - 1. ipadd should be a dot notation IP address such as 128.111.222.333 or host name.

WATCH variable watchfile interval-multiplier: watch the value of variable variable. Query for the value of variable every interval-multiplier’th time the agent to which the WATCH line corresponds is queried (eg: if the interval multiplier is 2, and the agent to be queried is queried every 3 base intervals, the value of this variable will be queried for every 6 base intervals). If the value of this variable changes, log a line of the form:

timestamp Variable variable changed: new value is value

to watchfile. Note that a WATCH line must be preceded by at least one AGENT line; the WATCH line will correspond to the last AGENT line preceding this WATCH line. Names of variables to be watched should be specified beginning at the ’_mgmt_mib’ component. For example to watch the value of the _iso_org_dod_internet_mgmt_mib_system_sysDescr_0 variable, specify ’_mgmt_mib_system_sysDescr_0’.

LOG variable logfile interval-multiplier: log the value of variable variable. Query for the value of variable every interval-multiplier’th time the agent to which the LOG line corresponds is queried (eg: if the interval multiplier is 2, and the agent to be queried is queried every 3 base intervals, the value of this variable will be queried for every 6 base intervals). Log a line of the form:

timestamp variable value

to logfile. Note that a LOG line must be preceded by at least one AGENT line; the LOG line will correspond to the last AGENT line preceding this LOG line. Names of variables to be logged should be specified beginning at the ’_mgmt_mib’ component. For example to log the value of the _iso_org_dod_internet_mgmt_mib_system_sysDescr_0 variable, specify ’_mgmt_mib_system_sysDescr_0’.

FILES

/etc/snmp.variablesThe variable initfile
configfileThe snmppoll configfile
fileFiles to log/watch variable values