Smarts SAM: Incoming trap adapter alerts are being processed by the catch all trap definition and not the specific trap definition

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:


Incoming traps for a specific device are only being processed by the catch all trap definition when a explicit trap definition exists.

Incoming Smarts SAM trap adapter alerts for a specific device are being processed by the catch all trap definition and not the specific trap definition

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

This issue can affect environments where a catch-all trap definition is configured at the end of the Smarts SAM trap_mgr.conf file, and a specific trap definition is configured above the catch-all trap definition. In one environment that encountered this issue, the specific trap definition was improperly entered in the trap_mgr.conf file as follows:

• Empty spaces before the BEGIN_TRAP entry
• The leading period in front of the enterprise OID was missing
• The trap-number and specific-number were missing.

In this condition, all incoming traps will only be processed by the catch-all and not by the specific trap definition for the enterprise OID, trap-number and specific-number.

Resolution

Check the specific trap definition configured for the enterprise OID that is experiencing the above issue to ensure it is properly configured. The following shows how to correct the improper trap configuration referenced above:

BEGIN_TRAP
Make sure there is no white space before the BEGIN_TRAP entry and the start of the line.

Incorrect Example Before:

  BEGIN_TRAP

Corrected Example After (no leading space):

BEGIN_TRAP
 

OID specification
Make sure that the leading period in front of the enterprise oid is present:

Incorrect Example Before:

BEGIN_TRAP 1.3.6.1.2.1.17.2 6 *

Corrected Example After:

BEGIN_TRAP .1.3.6.1.2.1.17.2 6 *
 

Trap number and specific number specification

Make sure you include a trap-number and specific-number:

Incorrect Example Before:

BEGIN_TRAP .1.3.6.1.2.1.17.2

Corrected Examples After (See Notes):

BEGIN_TRAP .1.3.6.1.2.1.17.2 6 1003

BEGIN_TRAP .1.3.6.1.2.1.17.2 6 *

BEGIN_TRAP .1.3.6.1.2.1.17.* *

Additional Information

Specific number configuration
Regarding the specific-number 1003 in the above example, this number must be configured specifically for each device, and 1003 is only an example. 

In using the specific-number 1003, this trap definition will only process incoming traps for the enterprise OID with the specific-number value of 1003.  Any other values will not get processed by the trap definition and will get picked up the the catch all trap if ones exists.

Using the asterisk (*) as the specific-number means that all incoming traps with the same enterprise number will get processed by the explicitly defined trap definition, no matter what the specific-number is. This is optional and will depend on your configuration preference for traps related to the device. You may need to create an explicit trap definition for each unique specific-number related to a device.