6.5.1

Table Of Contents
Monitoring Networked Devices with
SNMP and vSphere 9
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is commonly used by management programs to monitor a
variety of networked devices.
vSphere systems run SNMP agents, which can provide information to a management program in at least
one of the following ways:
n
In response to a GET, GETBULK, or GETNEXT operation, which is a specic request for information from the
management system.
n
By sending a notication which is an alert sent by the SNMP agent to notify the management system of
a particular event or condition.
Management Information Base (MIB) les dene the information that can be provided by managed devices.
The MIB les dene managed objects, described by object identiers (OIDs) and variables arranged in a
hierarchy.
vCenter Server and ESXi have SNMP agents. The agent provided with each product has dierent
capabilities.
This chapter includes the following topics:
n
“Using SNMP Traps with vCenter Server,” on page 151
n
“Congure SNMP for ESXi,” on page 152
n
“SNMP Diagnostics,” on page 161
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“Monitor Guest Operating Systems with SNMP,” on page 162
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“VMware MIB Files,” on page 162
n
“SNMPv2 Diagnostic Counters,” on page 163
Using SNMP Traps with vCenter Server
The SNMP agent included with vCenter Server can be used to send traps when vCenter Server starts and
when an alarm is triggered on vCenter Server. The vCenter Server SNMP agent functions only as a trap
emier and does not support other SNMP operations, such as receiving GET, GETBULK, and GETNEXT requests.
vCenter Server can send SNMPv1 traps to other management applications. You must congure your
management server to interpret the SNMP traps sent by vCenter Server.
To use the vCenter Server SNMP traps, congure the SNMP seings on vCenter Server and your
management client software to accept the traps from vCenter Server.
The traps sent by vCenter Server are dened in VMWARE-VC-EVENT-MIB.mib.
VMware, Inc.
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