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>