Provided by: collectd-core_5.9.2.g-1ubuntu5_amd64 
NAME
collectd-snmp - Documentation of collectd's "snmp plugin"
SYNOPSIS
LoadPlugin snmp
# ...
<Plugin snmp>
<Data "powerplus_voltge_input">
Table false
Type "voltage"
TypeInstance "input_line1"
Scale 0.1
Values "SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.6050.5.4.1.1.2.1"
</Data>
<Data "hr_users">
Table false
Type "users"
Shift -1
Values "HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrSystemNumUsers.0"
</Data>
<Data "std_traffic">
Table true
Type "if_octets"
TypeInstanceOID "IF-MIB::ifDescr"
#FilterOID "IF-MIB::ifOperStatus"
#FilterValues "1", "2"
Values "IF-MIB::ifInOctets" "IF-MIB::ifOutOctets"
</Data>
<Host "some.switch.mydomain.org">
Address "192.168.0.2"
Version 1
Community "community_string"
Collect "std_traffic"
Interval 120
Timeout 10
Retries 1
</Host>
<Host "some.server.mydomain.org">
Address "192.168.0.42"
Version 2
Community "another_string"
Collect "std_traffic" "hr_users"
</Host>
<Host "secure.router.mydomain.org">
Address "192.168.0.7:165"
Version 3
SecurityLevel "authPriv"
Username "cosmo"
AuthProtocol "SHA"
AuthPassphrase "setec_astronomy"
PrivacyProtocol "AES"
PrivacyPassphrase "too_many_secrets"
Collect "std_traffic"
</Host>
<Host "some.ups.mydomain.org">
Address "tcp:192.168.0.3"
Version 1
Community "more_communities"
Collect "powerplus_voltge_input"
Interval 300
Timeout 5
Retries 5
</Host>
</Plugin>
DESCRIPTION
The "snmp plugin" queries other hosts using SNMP, the simple network management protocol, and translates
the value it receives to collectd's internal format and dispatches them. Depending on the write plugins
you have loaded they may be written to disk or submitted to another instance or whatever you configured.
Because querying a host via SNMP may produce a timeout the "complex reads" polling method is used. The
ReadThreads parameter in the main configuration influences the number of parallel polling jobs which can
be undertaken. If you expect timeouts or some polling to take a long time, you should increase this
parameter. Note that other plugins also use the same threads.
CONFIGURATION
Since the aim of the "snmp plugin" is to provide a generic interface to SNMP, its configuration is not
trivial and may take some time.
Since the "Net-SNMP" library is used you can use all the environment variables that are interpreted by
that package. See snmpcmd(1) for more details.
There are two types of blocks that can be contained in the "<Plugin snmp>" block: Data and Host:
The Data block
The Data block defines a list of values or a table of values that are to be queried. The following
options can be set:
Type type
collectd's type that is to be used, e. g. "if_octets" for interface traffic or "users" for a user
count. The types are read from the TypesDB (see collectd.conf(5)), so you may want to check for which
types are defined. See types.db(5) for a description of the format of this file.
Table true|false
Define if this is a single list of values or a table of values. The difference is the following:
When Table is set to false, the OIDs given to Values (see below) are queried using the "GET" SNMP
command (see snmpget(1)) and transmitted to collectd. One value list is dispatched and, eventually,
one file will be written.
When Table is set to true, the OIDs given to Values, TypeInstanceOID, PluginInstanceOID, HostOID and
FilterOID (see below) are queried using the "GETNEXT" SNMP command until the subtree is left. After
all the lists (think: all columns of the table) have been read several values sets will be dispatches
and, eventually, several files will be written. If you configure a Type (see above) which needs more
than one data source (for example "if_octets" which needs "rx" and "tx") you will need to specify
more than one (two, in the example case) OIDs with the Values option. This has nothing to do with the
Table setting.
For example, if you want to query the number of users on a system, you can use
"HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrSystemNumUsers.0". This is one value and belongs to one value list, therefore
Table must be set to false. Please note that, in this case, you have to include the sequence number
(zero in this case) in the OID.
Counter example: If you want to query the interface table provided by the "IF-MIB", e. g. the bytes
transmitted. There are potentially many interfaces, so you will want to set Table to true. Because
the "if_octets" type needs two values, received and transmitted bytes, you need to specify two OIDs
in the Values setting, in this case likely "IF-MIB::ifHCInOctets" and "IF-MIB::ifHCOutOctets". But,
this is because of the Type setting, not the Table setting.
Since the semantic of Instance and Values depends on this setting you need to set it before setting
them. Doing vice versa will result in undefined behavior.
Plugin Plugin
Use Plugin as the plugin name of the values that are dispatched. Defaults to "snmp".
PluginInstance Instance
Sets the plugin-instance of the values that are dispatched to Instance value.
When Table is set to true and PluginInstanceOID is set then this option has no effect.
Defaults to an empty string.
TypeInstance Instance
Sets the type-instance of the values that are dispatched to Instance value.
When Table is set to true and TypeInstanceOID is set then this option has no effect.
Defaults to an empty string.
TypeInstanceOID OID
PluginInstanceOID OID
HostOID OID
If Table is set to true, OID is interpreted as an SNMP-prefix that will return a list of values.
Those values are then used as the actual type-instance, plugin-instance or host of dispatched
metrics. An example would be the "IF-MIB::ifDescr" subtree. variables(5) from the SNMP distribution
describes the format of OIDs. When option is set to empty string, then "SUBID" will be used as the
value.
Prefix may be set for values with use of appropriate TypeInstancePrefix, PluginInstancePrefix and
HostPrefix options.
When Table is set to false these options has no effect.
Defaults: When no one of these options is configured explicitly, TypeInstanceOID defaults to an empty
string.
TypeInstancePrefix
PluginInstancePrefix
HostPrefix
These options are intented to be used together with TypeInstanceOID, PluginInstanceOID and HostOID
respectively.
If set, String is preprended to values received by querying the agent.
When Table is set to false these options has no effect.
The "UPS-MIB" is an example where you need this setting: It has voltages of the inlets, outlets and
the battery of an UPS. However, it doesn't provide a descriptive column for these voltages. In this
case having 1, 2, ... as instances is not enough, because the inlet voltages and outlet voltages may
both have the subids 1, 2, ... You can use this setting to distinguish between the different
voltages.
Instance Instance
Attention: this option exists for backwards compatibility only and will be removed in next major
release. Please use TypeInstance / TypeInstanceOID instead.
The meaning of this setting depends on whether Table is set to true or false.
If Table is set to true, option behaves as TypeInstanceOID. If Table is set to false, option behaves
as TypeInstance.
Note what Table option must be set before setting Instance.
InstancePrefix String
Attention: this option exists for backwards compatibility only and will be removed in next major
release. Please use TypeInstancePrefix instead.
Values OID [OID ...]
Configures the values to be queried from the SNMP host. The meaning slightly changes with the Table
setting. variables(5) from the SNMP distribution describes the format of OIDs.
If Table is set to true, each OID must be the prefix of all the values to query, e. g.
"IF-MIB::ifInOctets" for all the counters of incoming traffic. This subtree is walked (using
"GETNEXT") until a value from outside the subtree is returned.
If Table is set to false, each OID must be the OID of exactly one value, e. g. "IF-MIB::ifInOctets.3"
for the third counter of incoming traffic.
Scale Value
The gauge-values returned by the SNMP-agent are multiplied by Value. This is useful when values are
transferred as a fixed point real number. For example, thermometers may transfer 243 but actually
mean 24.3, so you can specify a scale value of 0.1 to correct this. The default value is, of course,
1.0.
This value is not applied to counter-values.
Shift Value
Value is added to gauge-values returned by the SNMP-agent after they have been multiplied by any
Scale value. If, for example, a thermometer returns degrees Kelvin you could specify a shift of
273.15 here to store values in degrees Celsius. The default value is, of course, 0.0.
This value is not applied to counter-values.
Ignore Value [, Value ...]
The ignore values allows one to ignore TypeInstances based on their name and the patterns specified
by the various values you've entered. The match is a glob-type shell matching.
When Table is set to false then this option has no effect.
InvertMatch true|false(default)
The invertmatch value should be use in combination of the Ignore option. It changes the behaviour of
the Ignore option, from a blacklist behaviour when InvertMatch is set to false, to a whitelist when
specified to true.
FilterOID OID
FilterValues Value [, Value ...]
FilterIgnoreSelected true|false(default)
When Table is set to true, these options allow to configure filtering based on MIB values.
The FilterOID declares OID to fill table column with values. The FilterValues declares values list
to do match. Whether table row will be collected or ignored depends on the FilterIgnoreSelected
setting. As with other plugins that use the daemon's ignorelist functionality, a string that starts
and ends with a slash is interpreted as a regular expression.
If no selection is configured at all, all table rows are selected.
When Table is set to false then these options has no effect.
See Table and /"IGNORELISTS" for details.
The Host block
The Host block defines which hosts to query, which SNMP community and version to use and which of the
defined Data to query.
The argument passed to the Host block is used as the hostname in the data stored by collectd.
Address IP-Address|Hostname
Set the address to connect to. Address may include transport specifier and/or port number.
Version 1|2|3
Set the SNMP version to use. When giving 2 version "2c" is actually used.
Community Community
Pass Community to the host. (Ignored for SNMPv3).
Username Username
Sets the Username to use for SNMPv3 security.
SecurityLevel authPriv|authNoPriv|noAuthNoPriv
Selects the security level for SNMPv3 security.
Context Context
Sets the Context for SNMPv3 security.
AuthProtocol MD5|SHA
Selects the authentication protocol for SNMPv3 security.
AuthPassphrase Passphrase
Sets the authentication passphrase for SNMPv3 security.
PrivacyProtocol AES|DES
Selects the privacy (encryption) protocol for SNMPv3 security.
PrivacyPassphrase Passphrase
Sets the privacy (encryption) passphrase for SNMPv3 security.
Collect Data [Data ...]
Defines which values to collect. Data refers to one of the Data block above. Since the config file is
read top-down you need to define the data before using it here.
Interval Seconds
Collect data from this host every Seconds seconds. This option is meant for devices with not much CPU
power, e. g. network equipment such as switches, embedded devices, rack monitoring systems and so on.
Since the Step of generated RRD files depends on this setting it's wise to select a reasonable value
once and never change it.
Timeout Seconds
How long to wait for a response. The "Net-SNMP" library default is 1 second.
Retries Integer
The number of times that a query should be retried after the Timeout expires. The "Net-SNMP" library
default is 5.
SEE ALSO
collectd(1), collectd.conf(5), snmpget(1), snmpgetnext(1), variables(5), unix(7)
AUTHORS
Florian Forster <octo@collectd.org> Michael Pilat <mike@mikepilat.com>
5.9.0.git 2020-04-17 COLLECTD-SNMP(5)