Enable SNMP on vSphere ESXi 4.1

In the vSphere client you have a option to monitor your hardware status. This is of course  a very nice feature but only if you have your vSphere client open the whole day. When you have a management server like Nagios you want to use SNMP for monitoring your vSphere enviroment.

By default SNMP modules are provided by the installation but there not enabled. You can enable SNMP by doing the following steps:

1. Configure the community string, target and port
   vicfg-snmp –server [ip of vSphere host] -c [community string] -p [port, default 161] -t [destinationhost]@[port, default 161]/[community string]
   example: vicfg-snmp –server 192.168.1.1 -c public -p 161 -t 192.168.1.10@161/public
2. Enable SNMP
   vicfg-snmp –server [ip of vSphere host] -E
   example: vicfg-snmp –server 192.168.1.1 -E
3. Verify your settings
   vicfg-snmp –server [ip of vSphere host] -s
   example: vicfg-snmp –server 192.168.1.1 -s
4. Test your settings
   vicfg-snmp –server [ip of vSphere host] -T
   example: vicfg-snmp –server 192.158.1.1 -T

Al off these setting are written in /etc/vmware/snmp.xml. Below is a example file.

cat /etc/vmware/snmp.xml
<config>
<snmpSettings>
<communities>pubic</communities>
<enable>true</enable>
<port>161</port>
<targets>192.168.1.10@161/public</targets>
</snmpSettings>

If you want to provide these setting during your kickstart install put the following line into your ks.cfg file.

echo “<config><snmpSettings><enable>true</enable><communities>public</communities><port>161</port><targets>192.168.1.10@161/public</targets></snmpSettings></config>” > /etc/vmware/snmp.xml

Make sure you have a reboot at the end of the script or put a services.sh restart command in your ks.cfg file

If your are looking for the ESXi SNMP mib file, look here.