Enabling SNMP on ESX 3.5
SNMP traps can be used to monitor ESX serverhealth, and individual Virtual Machine status. An example of a free SNMP monitor for ESX is SolarWinds VM Monitor. In order to use these tools it is necessary to configure and enable the SNMPd on your ESX server.
First we must edit the snmpd.conf file:
vi /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf
Change the rocommunity line to match your community string:
rocommunity public
Ensure the VMWare MIB are enabled:
dlmod SNMPESX /usr/lib/vmware/snmp/libSNMPESX.so
If using the ESX firewall you will need to open the snmp ports:
esxcfg-firewall -e snmpd
Now start the snmpd service:
/etc/init.d/snmpd start
Set SNMP to startup automatically on system boot:
chkconfig snmpd on
You can query the status of the SNMPD service using the command:
/etc/init.d/snmpd status
These changes can be made online, and there is no requirement to restart your ESX server.