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How do I activate SNMP on macOS to monitor it with PRTG?

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I would like to monitor my machine that is running on macOS with the SNMP sensors of PRTG. How do I activate SNMP on macOS so that PRTG can query values for disk free, load average, and others via SNMP?

mac mac-mini macos macosx prtg snmp snmp-daemon snmpd

Created on Oct 2, 2012 12:24:48 PM by Daniel Zobel [Product Manager]

Last change on Oct 4, 2019 7:46:37 AM by Maike Guba [Paessler Support] (2,404) ●2 ●1



3 Replies

Accepted Answer

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This article applies to PRTG Network Monitor 19 or later

Activate SNMP on macOS and Monitor with PRTG

Current macOS versions include SNMP by default. There is a basic setup assistant that you can use to configure SNMP on your macOS machine.

Step 1: Back Up the snmpd.conf File

On your macOS machine, open the Terminal app, locate the snmpd.conf file under /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf, and save a backup copy. You can use the following command:

sudo cp /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf.org

Step 2: Adapt the snmpd.conf File

In the Terminal, enter the following command to start the setup assistant:

sudo snmpconf -g basic_setup



Follow the setup questions to configure SNMP to your needs.

Note: We recommend that you explicitly configure read-only access for SNMP v1 and SNMP v2c. This is because the default configuration value for the SNMP community string is public and therefore access is not secured.

Step 3: Start the SNMP Daemon

To start the SNMP daemon, use the following command:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.net-snmp.snmpd.plist

Step 4: Create SNMP Sensors

In PRTG, create a new device that represents your macOS machine using the respective IP address or DNS name.

  • For this new device, run an auto-discovery to let PRTG automatically create some SNMP sensors.
  • You can manually add further SNMP sensors. Not all measurements will be available via SNMP, but you should be able to create the following sensor types:
  • The auto-discovery might also find several generic SNMP values such as Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) errors or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) datagrams.

Step 5: Add the SNMP Daemon to Automatic Startup

Because you manually started the SNMP daemon in Step 3, the daemon will not run after you restart your macOS system.

Best practice is to automatically start the SNMP daemon at system startup. To add your SNMP daemon to automatic startup, you can edit the file /etc/hostconfig.

In the file, locate the line APPLETALK_HOSTNAME and add the following entry before APPLETALK_HOSTNAME: SNMPSERVER:=-YES-

Created on Oct 2, 2012 12:38:57 PM by Daniel Zobel [Product Manager]

Last change on Jul 13, 2020 9:27:02 AM by Volker Uffelmann [Paessler Support]



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/etc/hostconfig appears to be gone in El Capitan. How can we configure SNMP to run automatically on the newest version of OSX?

Created on Mar 21, 2016 7:26:38 PM



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Hi there,

Please check this link for an SNMP configuration guide for the El Capitan OS.

Best regards, Felix

Created on Mar 22, 2016 6:35:18 AM by Felix Saure [Paessler Support]




Disclaimer: The information in the Paessler Knowledge Base comes without warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk. Before applying any instructions please exercise proper system administrator housekeeping. You must make sure that a proper backup of all your data is available.