DXi SNMP Reference

Overview

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a lightweight protocol designed for remote management and monitoring of network devices. DXi-Series systems (DXi V-Series, DXi4000, DXi6000, and DXi8500) provide SNMP support to use in monitoring the status of the system.

SNMP works by sending messages from SNMP managers on a host system to different parts of a network. SNMP compliant devices, called agents, store data about the devices in Management Information Bases (MIBs). The agents then return this data to the SNMP managers.

You can configure the DXi SNMP agent to generate alerts, called traps, each time that a service ticket is created. The agent then sends the traps to the SNMP manager on a specified host system.

Note: For more information about service tickets, see the Service Tickets topic in your DXi Online Help or DXi User's Guide.

Supported SNMP Functionality

The DXi supports specific SNMP functionality, allowing it to receive GET requests and send unicast traps. In addition, all DXi MIB variables are supported by Quantum for remote management of the system. Review the following list of specific SNMP features included in DXi-Series systems.

Terms

Review the following terms used throughout this guide.

SNMP Configuration for DXi

Before monitoring your DXi system through SNMP, you need to configure your DXi to send traps from its agent and receive GET requests from the manager.

About the DXi SNMP Agent and Quantum MIB

Your DXi operating system runs Linux, and the DXi SNMP agent is the Net-SNMP 5.7.1. Whenever a request comes in to the DXi SNMP agent, the agent parses the request and decides how to process it, as follows:

Quantum SNMP MIB

The DXi SNMP agent that supports the DXi system also supports the general Quantum MIB, QUANTUM-SNMP.MIB. The following illustrates the structure of the Quantum MIB object ID.

Note: The DXi SNMP agent also supports MIBII, SNMPv2, and UCD MIBs by default.

SNMP Traps

When there is a change or failure in an individual component on the DXi, a service ticket is created, which in turn generates an SNMP trap. This section presents the service ticket events that generate traps and the DXi components against which the traps are reported.

The default SNMP trap severity (Trap_Level) can be modified by the (see SNMP Trap Severity).

Service Tickets

Service tickets are always reported against the violating field replaceable units (FRUs). The reporting FRU can be either of the following:

Service tickets can report both the violating FRU and the parent of the violating FRU. For more information about service tickets, see the Service Tickets topic in your DXi Online Help or DXi User's Guide.

Trap Message Formats

DXi-issued SNMP v2c traps are reported in a format that contains the following 4 PDU variable bindings fields (object ID (OID) / value pairs of data).

SNMP Trap Severity

The default severity of SNMP traps can be modified with the snmptrap-severity-overrides configuration file.

Note: SNMP trap severity modification requires the ServiceLogin user name and password. Contact the system DXi Administrator for the password.