Configuring SNMP Traps in ESXi/ESX

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

To generate virtual machine and environmental traps from ESXi/ESX 3.5, 4.x, and ESXi 5.x hosts, you must configure and enable the embedded SNMP agent. You cannot use the Net-SNMP-based agent to generate these traps, although it can receive GET transactions and generate other types of traps.

This represents a change in behavior from ESX 3.0.x, in which the configuration file for the Net-SNMP-based agent controlled the generation of virtual machine traps.

In ESXi 5.1, SNMP is configured using esxcli rather than vicfg-snmp. In addition, you have the option to configure SNMP v3 traps and informs as well as the SNMP v1 and v2c traps available with previous versions of ESXi.

For instructions on:

• Configuring SNMP v1 and v2c traps, see Configure ESXi for SNMP v1 and v2c in the vSphere Monitoring and Performance Guide.

 

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.1.x

Resolution

Run the vicfg-snmp.pl command from the Remote CLI or vSphere CLI to enable the SNMP agent and configure trap destinations. Each time you specify a target with the vicfg-snmp.pl command, the settings you specify overwrite all previously specified settings. To specify multiple targets, specify them in a single command, separated by commas.

To enable and configure SNMP traps:

Notes:

• Prior to ESXi 5.0, ESXi did not include a firewall.
• Ensure that the SNMP protocol is open in the ESXi/ESX firewall. For more information, see:
  
  
  • ESX 4.x: Open an SSH session to the host and run the command esxcfg-firewall -e snmpd. See Working with firewall rules in ESX 4.x (1021779).
    
    
  • ESXi 5.0: By default, the SNMP firewall port 161 is open. If it is not, see ESXi Firewall Configuration in the ESXi and vCenter Server 5.0 Documentation.
    
    
• To implement these steps:
  
  
  • ESXi/ESX 3.5: Use the Remote CLI. 
  • ESXi/ESX 4.x and ESXi 5.0: Run this procedure using the vSphere CLI, not the vSphere PowerCLI.
    
    For more information, see the vSphere Command-Line Interface Documentation
    
    

1. Navigate to the directory where vicfg-snmp.pl is stored. By default, vicfg-snmp.pl is located in:
   
   C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin
   
   
2. Run this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --show
   
   Note: Run the vicfg-snmp.pl --help command for a full list of options.
   
   
3. Specify the communities and trap targets with this command:
   
vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -t hostname@port -c community
   
   Note: In ESX 3.5, you may need to use vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -t hostname@port/community.
   
   Example: To send SNMP traps from the host host.example.com to port 162 on target.example.com, using the public community, use this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server host.example.com --username root --password password -t target.example.com@162 -c public
   
   For ESXi 5.0:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server host.example.com --username root --password password -t target.example.com@162/community
   
   Note: To prevent clear text display of the user password, remove the --password password portion. You are then prompted to enter the password, and the entry is hidden.
   
   
4. To enable the SNMP service, run this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --enable
   
   Note: To verify SNMP settings, run this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --show
   
   
5. (Optional) To send a test trap to verify that the agent is configured correctly, run this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --test
   
   The test trap generated is a warmStart trap.

Note: Changes to the SNMP configuration are stored on the ESXi/ESX host in /etc/vmware/snmp.xml. The ESX/ESXi SNMP agent log messages are saved in /var/log/syslog.log.

For more information, see:

• ESXi SNMP agent log entries for informs (2033466)
• SNMP inform configuration errors in syslog (2033526)
• SNMP trap information incorrectly displays in third-party monitoring software (1007483)
• VMware vSphere blog, Configuring SNMP v1/v2/v3 Using ESXCLI 5.1

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see:

• Español: Configuración de capturas SNMP para ESXi/ESX 3.5, 4.x y 5.0
• 日本語: ESXi/ESX での SNMP トラップの構成