How to monitor individual switch ports over SNMP

[TomTel]

Hello,

We  are trying to monitor individual switch ports on various switches via SNMP, but we only get very limited information back when doing an SNMP walk... See example. We don't seem to be able to see any other data about any switch.

SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.29671.1.1.4.1.1.224.85.61.134.5.40 = Hex-STRING: E0 55 3D 86 05 28
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.29671.1.1.4.1.3.224.85.61.134.5.40 = INTEGER: 1
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.29671.1.1.4.1.4.224.85.61.134.5.40 = Hex-STRING: 07 E8 09 03 09 30 35 00 2B 00 00
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.29671.1.1.4.1.5.224.85.61.134.5.40 = INTEGER: 1
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.29671.1.1.4.1.7.224.85.61.134.5.40 = IpAddress: 137.221.150.236
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.29671.1.1.4.1.8.224.85.61.134.5.40 = STRING: "***SERIAL NUMBER***"
SNMPv2-SMI::enterprises.29671.1.1.4.1.9.224.85.61.134.5.40 = STRING: "MS410-16-HW"

We are also trying to do this with wireless devices such as an MX68, we can see traffic, but no port statuses.

We have download the MIB file from the interface but it makes no difference if we use it or not.

snmpwalk -v3 -t 10 -l authPriv -u ***USERNAME*** -a SHA -A "***PASSWORD***" -x DES -X "***PASSWORD***" -Ob -M +. -M +MERAKI-CLOUD-CONTROLLER-MIB.txt snmp.meraki.com:16100 .1

How do we get SNMP v3 working as its enable with auth in the interface and V2 is disabled. I feel like we are missing a whole load of information.

If we cant monitor port status its all a bit pointless for us you see.

Any help much appreciated thank you.

[PhilipDAth]

You don't get a lot of rich information via SNMP for Meraki - host of that comes via the API.  Which monitoring platform are you using?  Many like PRTG have native Meraki API monitoring support.

You can run SNMP against the cloud, or directly againt the device itself.  From memory, you get more info when running directly against the device itself.

Your snmpwalk command you use is using V3, or so I not sure what you mean by enabling it - you are already using it.

[TomTel]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, i wondered if you would say that.

We are using Nagios XI... do you know if you are able to use the API through this? I have no experience with the Meraki API unfortunately.

Thanks

[GIdenJoe]

The Meraki native switches do support the standard IFMIB.
So you need to configure the local SNMP from switch to your NMS.  Don't use the dashboard SNMP for this.  The local switch SNMP is configured on the network wide -> general page while the organization SNMP is the dashboard SNMP.

In your NMS you can then limit the sensors to the switchports of interest.

I'm hoping in the future the Meraki managed Catalyst switches will be able to support model driven telemetry to have some real in depth counters 😉

[TomTel]

Yes i see the SNMP settings in the Network Wide --> General tab, i did look at this before but not entirely sure what to connect to, would it be snmp.meraki.com as it is the other way of doing it then?

Thanks very much for your help!

[GIdenJoe · Accepted solution]

So if you configure SNMP on the network-wide -> general page, each network element in that network will be able to be polled on their management IP.  So you can set your NMS to send SNMP get's that way.  The only thing is that you will not get any fancy QoS or other OID's but only the standards supported IFMIB OID's which include octets/sec, pkts/sec, broadcast, multicasts and unknown unicast pkts/sec, interface errors etc.

[TomTel]

Thank you for your help, i have now managed to monitor the switch ports using the advise you have given! I get loads more data going direct!

Thank you for your help.