Watch4net/Vipr SRM: How to create, apply an retrieve SNMP Mask from a collector

Products

• VMware

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:


Watch4net: Creating and applying an SNMP Mask
How to create and apply an SNMP Mask in Watch4Net 

What is an SNMP Mask and how can you create one in Watch4Net APG and apply it?

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - Watch4Net/M&R

Resolution

The following sections provide a definition of an SNMP mask and an example of how one is created in Watch4Net APG 5.

What is a SNMP Mask?
As defined in RFC2575 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2575.txt), an SNMP mask is an optional parameter of the set snmp view command. You can use a mask to modify a view inclusion, designating certain octets of an OID string as wildcard don't care values. Once defined, you can view within a MIB branch only those leaves associated with specific items, such as designated port numbers, MAC addresses, and IP addresses. This is done using a MIB browser such as that offered within the NetSight suite of products. 

SNMP Mask Management
Mask management consists in selecting the OIDs to recover from the SNMP agents. Using the SNMP poller, there are three different ways of collecting them.

• global properties that will be applied to every OID and table values defined in the mask
• single OIDs that contain numeric values only
• table columns that contain numeric values or strings that may be translated numeric values.

Watch4net APG only supports numeric values as data. String values that have no numeric equivalent must be collected as properties. There is no history on properties and they are modified only once per day (this may be changed in APG   s main configuration).

SNMP/OIDs Masks Configuration
The OIDs Masks Configuration refers to the snmp-masks.xml file. You can import and merge (or overwrite) the SNMP Masks configuration. You have a view of all installed SNMP Masks. In this section, you can either add or delete a mask. Keep in mind that a mask is a group of OIDs definition.

Installing a new SNMP ReportPack
Installing a new SNMP ReportPack was made easy in APG. Just upload your SNMP mask and translation file. You can update several snmp-masks (include them in the same file). You can then push the configuration to the poller.

Retrieving an SNMP Mask from a collector

If a new collector such as Brocade switch has been deployed, but the snmp masks are missing you can do the following to retrieve the snamp masks:
1. From administration navigate to SNMP collector
2. Select the SNMP collector
3. Click on Synchronization
4. Click "Retrieve" as in the following: