You can use Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to monitor your NSX-T Data Center components. The SNMP service is not started by default after installation.

The SNMP Framework in NSX-T Data Center enables you to monitor various system entities (such as disk on NSX Edge) and logical entities (such as NSX Edge VPN tunnel) using their SNMP managers. This framework enables NSX-T Data Center verticals and platform to define SNMP MIB objects to be monitored and which can be used to enable their SNMP managers to interact with NSX-T Data Center.

To download the SNMP MIB files, see Knowledge Base article 1013445: SNMP MIB module file download. For NSX-T Data Center, download the folder and use the extracted file VMWARE-NSX-MIB.mib.

For SNMP configuration, see Configure SNMP for ESXi in the VMware vSphere product documentation.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the NSX Manager CLI or the NSX Edge CLI.
  2. Run the following commands
    • For SNMPv1/SNMPv2:
      set snmp community <community-string>
      start service snmp
      The maximum character limit for community-string is 64.
    • For SNMPv3
      set snmp v3-users <user_name> auth-password <auth_password> priv-password <priv_password>
      
      start service snmp
      The maximum character limit for user_name is 32. Ensure that your passwords meet PAM constraints. If you want to change the default engine id, use the following command:
      set snmp v3-engine-id <v3-engine-id>
      
      start service snmp
      v3-engine-id is an even-length hexadecimal string that is 10 to 64 characters long and cannot be all 0s or Fs.

      NSX-T Data Center supports SHA1 and AES128 as the authentication and privacy protocols. You can also use API calls to set up SNMPv3. For more information, see the NSX-T Data Center API Guide.

  3. To enable the SNMP service to start automatically on reboot on the NSX appliance, run the command: set service snmp start-on-boot.