SNMPD daemon failing to respond, restarts frequently on ESXi 6.5

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The purpose of this article is to resolve issue where SNMPD daemon fails to respond and restarts frequently on ESXi 6.5.

Symptoms:

• After upgrading to ESXi 6.5, false alarms relating to ESXi rebooted are triggering in the SNMP monitoring station.
   
• SNMPD daemon on ESXi 6.5 stops running on ESXi causing alarms on customers monitoring stations.
   
  • To check if snmpd process is presently running or not, use the following command:
    $ /etc/init.d/snmpd status
    snmpd is not running
     
• In the /var/log/syslog.log , you may see similar entries:
  
  2016-12-08T03:05:52Z snmpd: generate_ifstack: update ifstacktable - calloc 48 entries failed Cannot allocate memory
  2016-12-08T03:08:20Z snmpd: load_nics: calloc ifentry for 9 ifentry failed
  2016-12-05T23:12:45Z Unknown: out of memory [366441]
  2016-12-05T23:13:00Z Unknown: out of memory [366441]
   
• You may recieve a warning on ram disk full.
  • To verify the ram disk full, if no notification has been set, use the below command in ESXi shell :
    $ vdf | grep snmp
    snmptraps 1M 1M 0B 100% --

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5

Cause

This issue is caused by a memory leak in the SNMPD.

Resolution

This is a known issue in vSphere 6.5.

 This issue is resolved in VMware ESXi 6.5, Patch Release ESXi650-201703001.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
When snmpd stops that causes a loss of remote telemetry to operators monitoring a vSphere ESXi but it will not not cause any loss of operational functionality.