Monitoring Dell ESX Host with SNMP

[thecapoeista]

I would like to say thanks in advance for any help given on this subject. I would like to centralize traps captured by our Dell Openmanage software to my zabbix monitoring solution. Im not sure how I would go about doing this or completely sure how it would work.

1) Since the openmanage software already translate the mibs and create the traps would I also need to setup a trap handler on my zabbix server and if so would I need to copy the mibs over to my zabbix server.

2) If I need my own trap solution on the zabbix server which is the best trap solution with a for dummies solution in mind because im new to starting this.

3) If needed does anyone know where to get the mibs from the Dell openmanage software.

4) Would I need an agent on the dell server with a SNMP trap solution on my zabbix server and if so would it need to be an active or non-active agent to collect the data. I'm currently reading logs on some servers in a active state.

Any help on a full working solution to this will be great. If you could explain the steps with as much detail as possible and assume no previous experience.

Thanks

[RohrbaGe]

Hi,

if you mean ESX and not ESXi you can install Dell Open Manage on the host,
and a standard zabbix agent.

Iḿ working with that for already some years now, it works fine.
I have created some items and triggers for the most important
information.
You need to open the firewall on the ESX for SNMP and zabbix.

The Dell Open Manage you can Download from Dell.

Ro

[thecapoeista]

thanks RohrbaGe for your reply.

Let me make sure I understand. If I install dell openmanage on a host and a non-active agent my zabbix monitoring will pick up all the traps without any additional snmp configurations?

Thanks

[thecapoeista]

Are you pointing the openmange to send the traps to your zabbix server or does the agent local to the host machine catch the traps and send them to the zabbix server.

[fjrial]

I'm using this solution in order to process the SNMP TRAPS from our routers:
http://www.zabbix.com/wiki/howto/mon...a_new_solution

Zabbix receives the traps (I've configured the routers to send snmp traps to zabbix machine). With the previous script, zabbix_sender insert the traps into an item/host, and then you can configure triggers/actions as you would do with any other item in zabbix..

There is no need to install agents..

Cheers.

[RohrbaGe]

I´m not working with traps yet.

But the general status of the machine is monitored,
that´s okay for me.

I looked at that trap solution some weeks ago, I like the idea.
But I did not got it to work, and was too busy with some other stuff
to check what the reason is.

Ro

[thecapoeista]

I'm using this solution in order to process the SNMP TRAPS from our routers:
http://www.zabbix.com/wiki/howto/mon...a_new_solution

Zabbix receives the traps (I've configured the routers to send snmp traps to zabbix machine). With the previous script, zabbix_sender insert the traps into an item/host, and then you can configure triggers/actions as you would do with any other item in zabbix..

There is no need to install agents..

Cheers.

Would I have to get the MIBS for the dell openmanage in order for this trap solution to work? Or does the openmanage handle the translation?

Thanks

[fjrial]

The traps solution posted in the wiki uses the snmptranslate tool in order to translate the OID to human readable values.. so, you need the mibs from dell. You have to install in the system in order to snmptrap translate oids..

The solution provided just listen for the snmp traps, if one received, it calls the snmptranslate utility to get the value.. Then it sends the value to an item.. It uses zabbix_sender inr oder to send the value to zabbix.

Then, you can configure triggers based on strings received on that item..

Tomorrow (now I don´t have access to my zabbix installation) I'll post more information, and instructions, if needed, in order to make this work.

Cheers.

[thecapoeista]

The traps solution posted in the wiki uses the snmptranslate tool in order to translate the OID to human readable values.. so, you need the mibs from dell. You have to install in the system in order to snmptrap translate oids..

The solution provided just listen for the snmp traps, if one received, it calls the snmptranslate utility to get the value.. Then it sends the value to an item.. It uses zabbix_sender inr oder to send the value to zabbix.

Then, you can configure triggers based on strings received on that item..

Tomorrow (now I don´t have access to my zabbix installation) I'll post more information, and instructions, if needed, in order to make this work.

Cheers.

I would really appreciate any extra help you can offer with this.

[thecapoeista]

The traps solution posted in the wiki uses the snmptranslate tool in order to translate the OID to human readable values.. so, you need the mibs from dell. You have to install in the system in order to snmptrap translate oids..

The solution provided just listen for the snmp traps, if one received, it calls the snmptranslate utility to get the value.. Then it sends the value to an item.. It uses zabbix_sender inr oder to send the value to zabbix.

Then, you can configure triggers based on strings received on that item..

Tomorrow (now I don´t have access to my zabbix installation) I'll post more information, and instructions, if needed, in order to make this work.

Cheers.

Hey fjrial I know your must be busy as I am, but have you had a chance to put together more info on setting this up. I would really appreciate it.

[fjrial]

Sorry, as you realize, I'm busy these days..

Coming back to handle the snmptraps:

-Did you put the script in your zabbix installation. It has to have execute permissions. The script can make use of two additional files:

Alias file:
#IP #hostname in zabbix
192.168.x.x TRAPS-HW-JUN-EX4200-CLOUD

This is optional.. just in case zabbix can't resolve the IP sending traps to a host in its database, it will looks in this file.

Excluded file:
This file includes lines, each line is a regular expression in perl. If a trap is received, it will check the string received with this regular expression, if matches, it will skip the trap.


-enable the debug part, it's very helpfully. Always check the log in order to see the errors,
-did you install the net-snmp package? The net-snmp package must be installed as a service in your system, in order to listen the snmptraps. Configuration for net-snmp package, in /etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf:

disableAuthorization yes
traphandle default /usr/bin/perl /usr/local/sbin/snmptrap.pl

In /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf, the basic configuration is as follows:

mibs ALL
mibAllowUnderline 1

if you don't need the translation of the snmp traps, you don't need the mibs files from dell.. and, now, just for testing, you can forget about them.. To see if you can make the oid translation just execute this:

snmptranslate -Off 1.3.6.x.x.x.x.x.x

Now, in the zabbix frontend you have to configure a host with an ip that matches the ip sending the trap, and then you have to set an item in the host, which will receive the traps values. Check the images attached.

Once, you have this working, we can continue with the triggers part..

Sorry, for this quick and dirty "how-to", If you let me know where are you finding problems, I'll try to help you.

Cheers.

[thecapoeista]

Sorry, for this quick and dirty "how-to", If you let me know where are you finding problems, I'll try to help you.

Cheers.

Thanks I will start this today. One other question with this solution will traps from all server come to the one host in zabbix or will I have to create a host for each server I want to monitor also will I have to create an Item for everything I want see traps on or would I see every trap the server sends?

Thanks

[fjrial]

You can:

-Have only one host ("wildcard host") with just one item and send everything (all traps coming from any host) to that item, or
-You can have a host with an item for each trap that belongs to the same incoming IP ..

cheers.

[thecapoeista]

You can:

-Have only one host ("wildcard host") with just one item and send everything (all traps coming from any host) to that item, or
-You can have a host with an item for each trap that belongs to the same incoming IP ..

cheers.

I configured a host with TRAP_HOST and added the item for type zabbix trapper key snmptraps and Type of Information is text. Yet it yields no traps nor errors. I can receive snmp v1 results via the dell openmanage template. I could translate all the mibs fine. Please your help and time is appreciated.

Im running ubuntu server- 10.04
snmp -v 5.4.2.1

[fjrial]

Can you see something in the log?
You must set

my $DEBUG = 1;
my $DEBUGFILE = "/tmp/zabbix_snmptrapdebug_new.log";

in the snmptrap.pl script

Then, check the log to see if there is some errors and write it down here..

If you can't see any errors, you are missing something. Maybe the firewall is blocking tcp connections on port 10051, maybe the dell openmanage is not configured to send the traps to zabbix..