Configuring SNMP

System administrators can configure IBM® Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway to use the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) by using the IBM Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway Web UI, or by using REST Administration APIs.

You can set up SNMP support for IBM Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway by using the Agent Extensibility Protocol (AgentX protocol). The AgentX protocol enables you to manage SNMP objects. Agents that export objects via AgentX to a master agent are called subagents. IBM Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway acts a subagent and handles requests from a master agent by using AgentX protocol.

Snmpd configuration files are used to enable the master agent and subagent IBM Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway to communicate with one another. The snmpd daemon must run on the same host as a master agent. You can configure snmpd manually outside of IBM Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway on the host by using the snmpd.conf file. The port and protocol that you specify for the subagent to listen for snmp requests on must match the values in the snmpd.conf file.

The protocol is always tcp6 and must be used as part of the agentXSocket directive that is defined in snmpd.conf. The port can only be configured manually by commenting out the SNMPPort directive in server.cfg and setting it to the port number that you want to use. This is a static configuration and cannot be modified unless the IBM Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway server is stopped and restarted. The default value for the subagent port is 705.

If you want to use SNMP trap notifications, ensure that the snmptrapd daemon is running and is configured to listen to subagent trap notifications. You must use the same port and protocol that you defined for the subagent in snmpd.conf. The community and host are also specified in the snmptrapd.conf file on the host.

SNMP enabled state

You can query the status of SNMP to determine whether SNMP is running. When SNMP is enabled, it should also be running. Any problems or issues with the SNMP configuration might result in SNMP not being able to start. For more information about querying the status of SNMP, see Viewing SNMP status by using REST Administration APIs.

For more information about configuring SNMP by using the IBM Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway Web UI, see Configuring SNMP by using the IBM Watson IoT Platform - Message Gateway Web UI.

For more information about configuring SNMP by using REST Administration APIs, see Configuring SNMP by using REST Administration APIs.