SNMP Item name - ability to get it using walk on OID [Archive]

View Full Version : SNMP Item name - ability to get it using walk on OID

kanour

03-12-2010, 08:10

Hi.

I have got one suggestion in regards to SNMP item.

Monitoring network interfaces brings a challenge, because it always depends how many interfaces you have got on the machine and also if you some of them are bonded.

Eg:
Having simple eth0 and eth1
SNMP OID are ifInOctecs.1 and ifInOctecs.2. This is just a value.
So if you monitor only those, you never know if this is eth0, bond0, or bge.

Having bond on eth0 and eth1 (bond0)
SNMP OID ifInOctecs.1 will no longer be related to eth0, but it will correspond to bond0.

So cannot name the item appropriately. You know this is some interface only.

Monitoring BSD, Windows, Solaris - the interface names are always different.

PROBLEM
=======
This brings a problem with templates. One is not able to specifically name the SNMP items, and therefore one does not know if this is a bond interface or any other interface.

The only way to know which interface is it is getting another OID ifDescr.1, etc. But that makes separate item. This does not work for graphs.

SOLUTION
========
It would be good, if we could add OID into the name of the Item which would pull the ifDescr.1 OID. That way we would show what interface is it in the item name and have the value next to it.

MORE INFO
========
I believe that OpenNMS is doing the same. They dynamically get the name for the interface to show you if this is eth0, eth1, etc.

kanour

03-12-2010, 09:01

I guess this is SNMP dynamic indexing.

And I thought I read the manual :-)

Sorry.

kanour

03-12-2010, 09:12

If I think about it. It is not the same.

Using dynamic index, I have to still create Item with interface description in name. So if I have Cisco switches, Linux, Windows, BSD servers, I have to create separate templates for each device, because the interface descriptions are different.

If we dynamically pull the ifDescr in the name of the Item, we can have only one template with:
Item name OID
Net in <ifDescr1> <ifInOctecs>

Such template can be assigned to any device, because it will automatically pull the interface name and it will disable those which do not exists.

I hope that my calculations are correct :-)

fmrapid

12-12-2010, 15:27

What you are asking for is related to an open feature request.

This is to get additionnal generic data fields in the item table.

Feature request
https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-577

Description thread of the feature
http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19601&highlight=meta-data

What you are asking for specifically is a useful feature in auto-building item descriptions on creating an item and during auto-discovery runs.

Having additionnal table fields related to items could be populated automatically by manual item creation, API calls for external built XML and for auto-discovery runs.

This is what I call best practice.

Cheers,

fmrapid

zalex_ua

13-12-2010, 00:19

See http://www.zabbix.com/wiki/doc/screenshots#section19

Read http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19769 at "Low level discovery" point.

And vote for my today request (https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-581) :)

bashman

16-12-2010, 10:51

welkin

22-01-2011, 20:38

According to the scrrenshots, the automatic discovery is based on the MIB IfAlias,now what if not IfAlias delivers the right name but IfName? It would be cool to have any arbitrary item value in the description like:

https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-1

regards
welkin

zalex_ua

23-01-2011, 08:32

According to the scrrenshots, the automatic discovery is based on the MIB IfAlias,now what if not IfAlias delivers the right name but IfName?

Just use IfName instead of IfAlias (http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/2.0/manual/discovery/low_level_discovery), but a better way - voting for the ZBXNEXT-581 (https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-581) :)

It would be cool to have any arbitrary item value in the description like:

https://support.zabbix.com/browse/ZBXNEXT-1

Yes, i'm agree with you ;)