What is this?

This knowledgebase contains questions and answers about PRTG Network Monitor and network monitoring in general.

Learn more

PRTG Network Monitor

Intuitive to Use. Easy to manage.
More than 500,000 users rely on Paessler PRTG every day. Find out how you can reduce cost, increase QoS and ease planning, as well.

Free Download

Top Tags


View all Tags

Simplify MIB/OID or Export Device Sensor Config as OIDLIB?

Votes:

0

I'm looking for a way to distribute OID Libraries for specific SNMP-enabled devices to installations at several remote sites that are not interconnected.

Instead of having all of the sensors show up, I'd like to modify the MIB or OID libraries to just include a few sensors, and to also relabel funky names like "(003) eth0" to "WAN port on router" so local junior techs can more easily diagnose issues.

I've tried using the MIB importer, but its results aren't working and I'm also getting more useful sensors from some of PRTG's built-in libraries than the MIBs for our ancient SNMP devices.

Please tell me there's a way to do this without having to learn how to write MIB files from scratch!

mib mib-importer oid snmp

Created on Oct 17, 2015 12:00:15 AM



5 Replies

Votes:

0

Hi Pete,

I think the best way will be to use device templates. This way you will be able to create a collection of sensors and also move them to other PRTG installations. The naming of the traffic sensors can be changed in the settings of the device via the SNMP Compatibility Options.

Best regards, Felix

Created on Oct 20, 2015 12:19:16 PM by Felix Saure [Paessler Support]



Votes:

0

Ahh! Thanks.

This seems very close to what I want, but the naming of the traffic sensors is still not quite what I'm after. The SNMP Compatibility Options still does not allow me to automatically have "eth0" labeled as "WAN port", "ath0" as "SSID1", etc. How can I accomplish this?

When I use ifAlias and ifName, both produce the same value. Where does PRTG get these values? Is it all from the compiled MIBs, or from elsewhere? If it's from the compiled MIBs, what field is it mapping to ifName and ifDescr?

Created on Oct 20, 2015 11:28:26 PM



Votes:

0

Hi Pete,

PRTG will perform a meta scan before adding the SNMP traffic sensors. It will not be possible to assign fix names for particular interfaces.

The ifName, ifAlias and iDescription values are part of the IF-MIB and can be managed directly on the device. So it will depend on the manufacturer of the device which field changes and might require some testing in the SNMP Compatibility Options.

Best regards, Felix

Created on Oct 21, 2015 10:17:57 AM by Felix Saure [Paessler Support]



Votes:

0

Thanks! I'm still learning SNMP and was not aware that ifAlias was supposed to be set on the device by the network admin.

Researching what you told me above led me to this article, which helps explain a lot of things: http://cric.grenoble.cnrs.fr/Administrateurs/Outils/MIBS/

Also, it looks like none of the devices I'm monitoring have had their ifDescr field set by the manufacturers, so there is no plain-language explanation of what each port's cryptic ifName really is.

For those interested, look at the section "Pattern 2 (Fully Compliant)" in the above article for an example of what good ifDescr and ifName fields are.

Felix--for those devices that do not provide the ability to modify the ifAlias string, is there any way for me to create one with PRTG that will be kept with a template or honored during auto-scan?

Created on Oct 22, 2015 5:05:12 PM



Votes:

0

Dear Peter

I am sorry, this is not possible.

Created on Oct 23, 2015 12:54:38 PM by Arne Seifert [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.