SNMP Community String on Item. Why?

[bcheese]

Guys,

Just a quick one, why is the community string for SNMP parameters linked to the item rather than the host? The community string is set on a host by host basis, and I have the situation where I now need to create multiple templates to retrieve the same information but with different community strings.

Any chance of getting this information moved to be against the host?

Thanks.
Brian.

[jangliss]

Guys,

Just a quick one, why is the community string for SNMP parameters linked to the item rather than the host? The community string is set on a host by host basis, and I have the situation where I now need to create multiple templates to retrieve the same information but with different community strings.

Any chance of getting this information moved to be against the host?

This has always baffled me too, however there are some instances where you can set a string to work on certain OIDs, and that's where it can be advantagous. This leads to a possible feature request, and that would be to store the community string on the host, but allow a local override on the item if the string is not blank there.

In the mean time, you can always batch update the items through SQL.

[Alexei]

This is because a single server may run several applications having their own SNMP agents.

[bcheese]

But doesn't each agent plug into the SNMP server, hence still one community string to access the Host/Device, and then a range of public/private OID's to access the information being requested?

[[email protected]]

On one host more than one snmp agent may run; each with a different community string, and a different port.