System information

Q. How do I add mibs to NMIS?
A. You need to edit the loadmibs.pl script, put the names of the mibs into the script and generate the OID
files. Not straight forward if you don't program in Perl but quite easy really. Something like:
mibdump.pl mibdir=/usr/local/share/snmp/mibs mibs=router outfile=/data/nmis/mibs/cisco-router.oid
You will need copies of MIBS, some available at http://www.sins.com.au/public/
Q. I am having problems with Ping?
A. NMIS now uses Perl Net::Ping and requires NMIS to be run with Root privileges. For backwards
compatibility the old routines are included which execute Unix Ping.
Q, Why do my Catalyst (4000, 5000, 6000) Switch Interfaces not appear in NMIS?
A. NMIS requires a description in the configuration on the switch interfaces before it will collect data on them.
This is a good idea. You normally only want to monitor ports that connect to servers or uplinks and who wants
to spend time unmarking the interfaces you don't want. Far better to put a description and let NMIS build the
config dynamically, than to spend time selecting which one of the {large number} of interfaces you want to
monitor (a la MRTG when you use configmaker).
Q.I have a Linux server that I would like to test reachability of, and preferably graph interface statistics for. I've
got the ucd snmp server on it, and an snmpwalk from the box nmis is running on to it gives me all the
information I would think would be needed.
If I run an update or collect with debug true, it always tells me: "No system file exists creating one."
and once I'm done, neither <BASE>/var/$node.dat nor <BASE>/var/$node-interface.dat exists. This is the
case when the node type is server or router.
Also, <BASE>/database/health/server/$node-reach.rrd exists, but with no data in it, and
<BASE>/database/interface/server/$node/ exists, but there are no files in it.
A. "The main thing is the removal of the check on system.sysServices, as ucd-snmp doesn't define this (so
NMIS will always think that SNMP is not working for Linux boxes). "
Q. Do I need to do anything to SNMP Simple ?
A. No. SNMP Simple is now a part of the NMIS files and is already in place. You can ignore those files.
You should take a few seconds to have a look through it and familiarise yourself with what it does though. Its
not compulsory just a good idea.
NMIS - Network Management Information System http://www.sins.com.au/nmis/
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