No response errors in the SNMP server (PRTG) for the ESXi hosts

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When there are multiple hosts added to the SNMP server (PRTG), you get 'no response' errors for a few hosts

Environment

• vSphere 7.x
• vSphere 8.x

Cause

SNMP v3 has performance limitations because of the use of encryption.

Because of this limitation, the SNMP server can only handle a limited number of requests per second.

Resolution

Use SNMP v2c for the ESXi hosts by running the commands below in the ESXi SSH session.

• Enter the following command to remove the existing SNMP configuration from the host:

          esxcli system snmp set -reset

• Update the community name with the command below:

          esxcli system snmp set --communities <community string>

• Update the SNMP target and port number with the command below:

          esxcli system snmp set --targets <SAL_GW_IP_ADDRESS>@<port#>/<community>

• Enable the SNMP with the command below:

          esxcli system snmp set --enable true

• Run the below command to get the SNMP configuration:

          esxcli system snmp get

• Run the below command to test the SNMP configuration:

          esxcli system snmp test

• Example output of a successful configuration:

          There is 1 target configured, send warmStart requested, test completed normally.

Additional Information

Reference document:

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/7-0/vsphere-monitoring-and-performance-7-0/snmp-and-vsphere/configure-snmp-for-esx-esxi/configure-esxi-for-snmp-v1-and-v2c/configure-the-snmp-agent-to-send-traps.html