Configuring SNMP Traps for ESXi/ESX 3.5, 4.x, and 5.x

To generate virtual machine and environmental traps from ESXi/ESX 3.5, 4.x, and 5.x hosts, you must configure and enable the embedded SNMP agent. You cannot use the Net-SNMP-based agent to generate these traps, although it can receive GET transactions and generate other types of traps.This represents a change in behavior from ESX 3.0.x, in which the configuration file for theEE-based agent controlled the generation of virtual machine traps. For more information, see Configuring SNMP on an ESX 3.0.x host (1008186).

Use the vicfg-snmp.pl command from the Remote CLI or vSphere CLI to enable the SNMP agent and configure trap destinations. Each time you specify a target with the vicfg-snmp.pl command, the settings you specify overwrite all previously specified settings. To specify multiple targets, specify them in a single command, separated by commas.To enable and configure SNMP traps:

Notes:

• Prior to ESXi 5.0, ESXi did not include a firewall.
• Ensure that the SNMP protocol is open in the ESXi/ESX firewall. For more information, see:
  • ESX 4.x: Open an SSH session to the host and run the command esxcfg-firewall -e snmpd. See Working with firewall rules in ESX 4.x (1021779).
  • ESXi 5.x: By default, the SNMP firewall port 161 is open. If it is not, see the ESXi Firewall Configuration section of the ESXi and vCenter Server 5.0 Documentation.
• To implement these steps:
  • ESXi/ESX 3.5: Use the Remote CLI. For more information, see the Remote Command-Line Interface Documentation. You can download the VMware Infrastructure Remote CLI from the VMware Download Center.
  • ESXi/ESX 4.x and ESXi 5.x: Run this procedure using the vSphere CLI, not the vSphere PowerCLI.For more information, see the vSphere Command-Line Interface Documentation.If you have a My VMware profile, you can download the vSphere CLI from:vSphere 4.x: https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=VCLI41
    vSphere 5.x: https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=VCLI50U1

    Note: If you do not have a My VMware profile, you must create one. For more information, see Creating a My VMware profile (2007005).

1. Navigate to the directory where vicfg-snmp.pl is stored. By default, vicfg-snmp.pl is located in:

C:Program FilesVMwareVMware vSphere CLIbin

• Run this command:vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --showNote: Run the vicfg-snmp.pl --help command for a full list of options.
• Specify the communities and trap targets with this command:
  
vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -t hostname@port -ccommunityNote: In ESX 3.5, you may need to use vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --passwordpassword -t hostname@port/community.

  Example: To send SNMP traps from the host host.example.com to port 162 on target.example.com, using the public community, use this command:

  vicfg-snmp.pl --server host.example.com --username root --password password -t target.example.com@162 -c public

  For ESXi 5.x:

  vicfg-snmp.pl --server host.example.com --username root --password password -t target.example.com@162/community

  Note: To prevent clear text display of the user password, remove the --password password portion. You are then prompted to enter the password, and the entry is hidden.

• To enable the SNMP service, run this command:vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --enableNote: To verify SNMP settings, run this command:vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --show
• (Optional) To send a test trap to verify that the agent is configured correctly, run this command:vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --testThe test trap generated is a warmStart trap.Note: Changes to the SNMP configuration are stored on the ESXi/ESX host in /etc/vmware/snmp.xml.