Configure SNMP Authentication and Privacy Protocols

SNMPv3 optionally supports authentication and privacy protocols.

Authentication is used to ensure the identity of users. Privacy allows for encryption of SNMP v3 messages to ensure confidentiality of data. These protocols provide a higher level of security than is available in SNMPv1 and SNMPv2c, which use community strings for security.

Both authentication and privacy are optional. However, you must enable authentication to enable privacy.

The SNMPv3 authentication and privacy protocols are licensed vSphere features and might not be available in some vSphere editions.

If you run ESXCLI commands through vCLI, you must supply connection options that specify the target host and login credentials. If you use ESXCLI commands directly on a host using the ESXi Shell, you can use the commands as given without specifying connection options. For more information on connection options see vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examples.

Prerequisites

Configure the ESXi SNMP agent by using the ESXCLI commands. See Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces for more information on how to use ESXCLI.

Procedure

1. (Optional) Run the esxcli system snmp set command with the --authentication option to configure authentication.
   For example, run the following command:

   esxcli system snmp set --authentication protocol

   Here, protocol must be either none (for no authentication), SHA1, or MD5.
2. (Optional) Run the esxcli system snmp set command with the --privacy option to configure privacy.
   For example, run the following command:

   esxcli system snmp set --privacy protocol

   Here, protocol must be either none (for no privacy) or AES128.