Attempting to monitor Avaya Servers

[cwscribner]

Hi all.

I'm attempting to monitor two Avaya servers. We did some work with the Avaya rep and got SNMP turned on and we can send SNMP traps from Avaya to Nagios. I have a few questions around this...

1.) Is SNMP configured by default to accept/log SNMP Traps?
1a.) If so, where is that information logged?

2.) I attempted to upload the G3-AVAYA MIB in the XI interface but it fails saying the directory permissions may be incorrect (just an FYI). So I copied the MIB to the Nagios server via FTP and set the proper permissions so XI could see it. How do I use that MIB to get data on the Avaya server? I tried the SNMP walk wizard but it only returns one oid entry labeled mib2-interfaces.

[jsmurphy]

Don't even get me started on Avaya junk, working with that vendor to accomplish damn near any environment integration task is an exercise in abstract futility. Using the VMware image provided by Nagios everything is already installed and set up for SNMP traps (Though I would request that you guys set snmptt to use snmptthandler mode by default so it doesn't load the configs on each execution and so you can also use the duplicate trap window feature).

The fact of the matter is the Avaya mibs won't translate, I get the same output as you... there is one other vendor where I get the same results which is Bluecoat. If you want to check out the logging for snmptrapd (the trap receiver) it's in /var/log/net-snmpd.conf and if you want snmptt (the trap translator) logging then edit /etc/snmp/snmptt.conf and turn it on.

I can only wildly speculate at this stage that it doesn't work because it doesn't properly comply with mib standards and hence can't be processed properly, I'm hoping over the coming weeks I'll get a chance to investigate that hunch in more detail. My experience with Avaya thus far has led me to believe they aren't big on complying with so called "rfc" standards .

[nscott]

I can only echo jsmurphy, everything he said was spot on! I've had to work with Avaya before with similar results, also definitely seconding the idea about checking the logs/turning the logs on for snmpd and snmptt. To turn the logs on for snmptt, you'll need to edit

/etc/snmp/snmptt.ini

And change the following variables the values I give

log_enable = 1
log_file = /var/log/snmptt/snmptt.log
log_system_enable = 1
log_system_file = /var/log/snmptt/snmpttsystem.log
unknown_trap_log_enable = 1
unknown_trap_log_file = /var/log/snmptt/snmpttunknown.log

Then you'll need to create the directory and files, so you can run these:

mkdir /var/log/snmptt
touch /var/log/snmptt/{snmptt.log,snmpttsystem.log,snmpttunknown.log}

Then restart snmptt

service snmptt restart

Also if you're dealing with a lot of SNMP traps you could give NSTI a try:

http://exchange.nagios.org/directory/Ad ... 29/details

and @jsmurphy, thanks for the tip on the config suggestion. I'll look into that!

[cwscribner]

Is it normal for snmptt to not be installed with Nagios? I have snmpd but there's no snmptt service.

[scottwilkerson]

that is correct, snmptt is not installed by default on an XI server

[cwscribner]

I don't know much about SNMP, so bear with me...

The snmpd that gets SNMP data from hosts now...that doesn't handle snmptraps?

[scottwilkerson]

snmpd is the snmp daemon and is used to give snmp data to the requester.

snmpget is what is used to get data from the hosts but doesn't handle traps.

This document on Integrating SNMP Traps with Nagios XI may be of assistance and installs snmptt
http://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagi ... ith_XI.pdf

[cwscribner]

Ah, okay. So the whole gang is snmpd (to serve), snmpget (to...get), and snmptt (to trap). Got it.

So here's another question. I've uploaded the Avaya MIB to the Nagios server. If I install snmptt (via documentation), does that mean Nagios will be able to interpret the Avaya MIB properly? Or are those two separate issues?

[scottwilkerson]

So here's another question. I've uploaded the Avaya MIB to the Nagios server. If I install snmptt (via documentation), does that mean Nagios will be able to interpret the Avaya MIB properly? Or are those two separate issues?

Should it work and will it work are really 2 different questions as put forth by jsmurphy and nscott. It should, but from the experience these two have, it may not especially if jsmurphy is correct and their MIB isn't following the rfc standards...

[niebais]

We worked out something in our contract to ge Avaya to create a mysql database for us...they never got that working either. If you get this working...please let us know.