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Simple Network Management Protocol SNMP

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June 16th, 2014 Go to comments
Building a working network is important but monitoring its health is as important as building it.
Luckily we have tools to make administrators life easier and SNMP is one among of them. SNMP
presents in most of the network regardless of the size of that network. And understanding how
SNMP works is really important and that what we will learn in this tutorial.
Understand SNMP
SNMP consists of 3 items:
+ SNMP Manager (sometimes called Network Management System NMS): a software runs on the
device of the network administrator (in most case, a computer) to monitor the network.
+ SNMP Agent: a software runs on network devices that we want to monitor (router, switch,
server)
+ Management Information Base (MIB): is the collection of managed objects. This components
makes sure that the data exchange between the manager and the agent remains structured. In other
words, MIB contains a set of questions that the SNMP Manager can ask the Agent (and the Agent
can understand them). MIB is commonly shared between the Agent and Manager.

For example, in the topology above you want to monitor a router, a server and a Multilayer Switch.
You can run SNMP Agent on all of them. Then on a PC you install a SNMP Manager software to
receive monitoring information. SNMP is the protocol running between the Manager and Agent.
SNMP communication between Manager and Agent takes place in form of messages. The

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monitoring process must be done via a MIB which is a standardized database and it contains
parameters/objects to describe these networking devices (like IP addresses, interfaces, CPU
utilization, ). Therefore the monitoring process now becomes the process of GET and SET the
information from the MIB.
SNMP Versions
SNMP has multiple versions but there are three main versions:
+ SNMP version 1
+ SNMP version 2c
+ SNMP version 3
SNMPv1 is the original version and is very legacy so it should not be used in our network.
SNMPv2c updated the original protocol and offered some enhancements. One of the noticeable
enhancement is the introduction of INFORM and GETBULK messages which will be explain later
in this tutorial.
Both SNMPv1 and v2 did not focus much on security and they provide security based on
community string only. Community string is really just a clear text password (without encryption).
Any data sent in clear text over a network is vulnerable to packet sniffing and interception. There are
two types of community strings in SNMPv2c:
+ Read-only (RO): gives read-only access to the MIB objects which is safer and preferred to other
method.
+ Read-write (RW): gives read and write access to the MIB objects. This method allows SNMP
Manager to change the configuration of the managed router/switch so be careful with this type.
The community string defined on the SNMP Manager must match one of the community strings on
the Agents in order for the Manager to access the Agents.
SNMPv3 provides significant enhancements to address the security weaknesses existing in the
earlier versions. The concept of community string does not exist in this version. SNMPv3 provides a
far more secure communication using entities, users and groups. This is achieved by implementing
three new major features:
+ Message integrity: ensuring that a packet has not been modified in transit.
+ Authentication: by using password hashing (based on the HMAC-MD5 or HMAC-SHA
algorithms) to ensure the message is from a valid source on the network.
+ Privacy (Encryption): by using encryption (56-bit DES encryption, for example) to encrypt the
contents of a packet.
Note: Although SNMPv3 offers better security but SNMPv2c however is still more common. Cisco
has supported SNMPv3 in their routers since IOS version 12.0.3T.
In the next part we will learn the SNMP messages used in each version.
SNMP Messages
SNMP Messages are used to communicate between the SNMP Manager and Agents. SNMPv1
supports five basic SNMP messages:
+ SNMP GET

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+ SNMP GET-NEXT
+ SNMP GET-RESPONSE
+ SNMP SET
+ SNMP TRAP
In general, the GET messages are sent by the SNMP Manager to retrieve information from the
SNMP Agents while the SET messages are used by the SNMP Manager to modify or assign the
value to the SNMP Agents.
Note: GET-NEXT retrieves the value of the next object in the MIB.
The GET-RESPONSE message is used by the SNMP Agents to reply to GET and GET-NEXT
messages.
Unlike GET or SET messages, TRAP messages are initiated from the SNMP Agents to inform the
SNMP Manager on the occurrence of an event. For example, suppose you want to be alarmed when
the CPU usage of your server goes above 80%. But it would be very annoying if the administrator
has to actively use the GET message to check the CPU usage from time to time. In this case, the
TRAP message is very suitable for that purpose because the administrator would only be informed
from the CPU itself when that event occurs. The figure below shows the direction of SNMP
messages:

From SNMPv2c, two new messages were added: INFORM and GETBULK.
INFORM: An disadvantage of TRAP message is unreliable. SNMP communicates via UDP so it is
unreliable because when the SNMP Agents send TRAP message to the SNMP Manager it cannot
know if its messages arrive to the SNMP Manager. To amend this problem, a new type of message,
called INFORM, was introduced from SNMPv2. With INFORM message, the SNMP Manager can
now acknowledge that the message has been received at its end with an SNMP response protocol
data unit (PDU). If the sender never receives a response, the INFORM can be sent again. Thus,
INFORMs are more likely to reach their intended destination.
GETBULK: The GETBULK operation efficiently retrieve large blocks of data, such as multiple
rows in a table. GETBULK fills a response message with as much of the requested data as will fit.
Note: There is no new message types on SNMPv3 compared to SNMPv2c.
SNMP Configuration

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In the last part we will go through a simple SNMP configuration so that you can have a closer look at
how SNMP works. SNMPv2c is still more popular than SNMPv3 so we will configure SNMPv2c.
1. Configure a community string
Router(config)#snmp-server community 9tut ro
In this case our community string named 9tut. The ro stands for read-only method.
2. Configure the IP address of a host receiver (SNMP Manager) for SNMPv2c TRAPs or
INFORMs
Router(config)#snmp-server host 10.10.10.12 version 2c TRAPCOMM
TRAPCOMM is the community string for TRAP.
3. Enable the SNMP Traps
Router(config)#snmp-server enable traps
If we dont want to enable all trap messages we can specify which traps we want to be notified. For
example, if you only want to receive traps about link up/down notification type then use this
command instead:
Router(config)#snmp-server enable traps link cisco
Of course we have to configure an SNMP Manager on a computer with these community strings so
that they can communicate.
Good resource and reference:
http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Simple_Network_Management_Protocol.
Comments (73) Comments
Comment pages
Previous 1 2 2206
1. Fazil Ali VS
July 11th, 2015
Nice Infos
2. siddhu dhangar
August 17th, 2015
very nice info
3. Hasan
August 17th, 2015
Very nice sir, its so helpfull

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4. Jawwad
August 21st, 2015
Very good notes, really helpful
5. Asad
September 5th, 2015
Very true and brief explanation
6. Mr.Nay Zaw
September 10th, 2015
I like this tutorial .This is good idea.
7. Anonymous
September 13th, 2015
It wouldve been more helpful For the beginner like me if you included a little config or
details about the snmp manager. But tnx for the info though!
8. Faizal KaKKaDaN
September 14th, 2015
Excellent.!!!!!
9. LOGESH HARI
September 14th, 2015
NICE!!!!!
10. MANO CHAK
September 14th, 2015
WOW EXCELLENT MARVELLOUS
11. Rich
September 15th, 2015
Excelent, It is very Helpful
12. Uday
September 19th, 2015
Good one
13. tockers
September 21st, 2015
can you configure more than one community string on a Cisco router
14. Stephan

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September 23rd, 2015

i noticed some questions about logging lvls:
Select 3 and you will get 0+1+2+3
The meaning of the different logging levels are
*0 Emergencies System is unusable
*1 Alerts Immediate action needed
*2 Critical Critical conditions
*3 Errors Error conditions
*4 Warnings Warning conditions
*5 Notifications Informational messages
*6 Informational Normal but significant conditions
*7 Debugging Debugging messages
15. meet
October 2nd, 2015
great @9tut
16. Anonymous
October 22nd, 2015
please can someone tell me how to download the video for ccna training
17. zover@ss
October 26th, 2015
good resource. i liked so much!!!
well done
18. Peter
November 1st, 2015
Awesome site.
19. swinekurah@gmail.com
November 10th, 2015
Well explained
20. eu
November 12th, 2015

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Virus found in alis rar file. dont download

21. captain
November 15th, 2015
Virus found in alis rar file. dont download
22. nazeef from afghanistan
November 23rd, 2015
very nice explanation.
23. Henric
December 15th, 2015
Hi..it is really nice pictures for SNMP.
SNMP is very important but life is going through IoT ;)
Check this http://www.iothought.com
Comment pages
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