Configuring SNMP traps in vCenter Server 4.x / 5.x

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to configure your server for SNMP by integrating your third-party SNMP monitor with vCenter Server.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x

Resolution

You can configure up to four receivers of SNMP traps that must be configured in numerical order. Each SNMP trap requires a corresponding host name, port, and community.

To configure your server for SNMP:

1. Ensure you can ping your SNMP receiver successfully from your vCenter Server. For more information, see Testing network connectivity with the ping command (1003486).
2. In vSphere Client, navigate to:
   
   

   • For vCenter Server 4.x: Click Administration > VirtualCenter Management Server Configuration
   • For vCenter Server 5.x: Click Administration > vCenter Server Settings
     
     
3. Select SNMP in the VirtualCenter Management Server Configuration dialog.
4. Enter the DNS name or IP address of the SNMP receiver in the Receiver URL field.
5. Enter the port number of the receiver in the field next to the Receiver URL field. If the port value is zero (0), vCenter Server uses the default port, which is 162.
6. Enter the community identifier in the Community String field.
7. Click OK to accept the vCenter Server setting changes you made and close the dialog.

Notes:

• Traps sent by vCenter Server 5 are defined in VMWARE-VC-EVENT-MIB.MIB.To download the MIB modules for vCenter Server 5.0.For more information, see Using SNMP Traps with vCenter Server.
• Traps sent by vCenter Server 4.x are defined in files VMWARE-VC-EVENT-MIB.mib and VMWARE-VMINFO-MIB.mib. To download the ESX 4.0 SNMP MIB modules.

The MIB definition files can be found at %Program Files%\VMware\Infrastructure\VirtualCenter Server\MIBS when the default installation directory is used in the vCenter Server 4.x installation.

Additional Information

SNMP MIB module file download