This post will go over enabling and using SNMP monitoring in ThousandEyes. To see past posts in this series expand the box below.
ThousandEyes Walkthrough Table of Contents
- Part 1 – The What and the Why
- Part 2 – Lab build
- Part 3 – Enterprise and Endpoint Agent Installs
- Part 4.1 – SNMP Monitoring <–You Are Here
- Part 4.2 – Scenarios and Test Types
- Part 4.3.1 – Scenario 1 – Enterprise agent to agent test configuration
- Part 4.3.2 – Scenario 2 – Enterprise DNS test configuration
- Part 4.3.3 – Scenario 3 – Enterprise and Endpoint HTTP test configuration (Coming soon)
- Part 4.3.4 – Scenario 4 – Enterprise Page Load test configuration (Coming less soon)
- Part 4.3.5 – Scenario 5 – Enterprise Transaction test configuration and Endpoint Agent Browser Settings (Coming more less soon)
- Part 4.4+ – Details TBD
There are some behind-the-scenes posts that go into more detail on how and why I took the approach that I did. Those can be found here:
- Behind the Scenes – The Lab Build
- Ok, there’s only one so far, but I plan to add more where it makes sense.
With the lab environment built, and the agents installed and online, now it’s time to start actually getting monitoring data through ThousandEyes!
If you haven’t followed along with the previous posts in this series you can find the lab build here: https://www.mytechgnome.com/2022/04/thousandeyes-walkthrough-part-2-lab.html and the agent installation here: https://www.mytechgnome.com/2022/04/thousandeyes-walkthrough-part-3.html
This lab requires version 1.1 of the lab build. Verify the lab you are using is 1.1 or newer. If it’s not, look at the CHANGELOG section near the bottom of the lab build post: https://www.mytechgnome.com/2022/04/thousandeyes-walkthrough-part-2-lab.html
SNMP Configuration
The SNMP configuration will allow basic SNMP monitoring but is not intended to replace existing SNMP monitoring solutions. Within ThousandEyes the value of SNMP monitoring is to provide more contextual data and visibility, and some capabilities to alert on different conditions.
- Open a web browser and navigate to https://www.thousandeyes.com/
- Log into your account
- Click the Hamburger icon
in the top left - Expand Devices
- Click on Device Settings
- There might be a Get Started with Devices splash screen, or it will take you directly to the Devices page.
- Splash screen –
- Click Start Discovery
- Devices Page
- Click Find New Devices
- On the right in the Basic Configuration enter the scan details
- In Targets enter the following subnet: 10.255.255.0/24
- In the Monitoring Agent drop-down select CS1-1
- Under Credentials click “Create new credentials”
- In the Add New, Credentials pane enter a name, and for the community, string enter: TE
- If the Credentials don’t auto-populate then click the dropdown and select the TE-SNMP that was just created
- Occasionally devices may not be picked up on the first discovery, but if the box is checked to “Save as a scheduled discovery” it will retry every hour
- Click Start Discovery
- Wait for the discovery process to complete – this might take a few minutes
- NOTE: There seems to be a bug in the UI where it displays a “No devices found” error, even though all the devices were discovered.
- Click back to the main section of the page and the Add Devices panel will disappear
- Click the Select All checkbox on the top left of the device list, then click Monitor at the bottom of the page.
- Wait a few minutes for the devices to show Green under the Last Contact column
SNMP Toplolgy
ThousandEyes includes a cool toplogy builder based on the data collected from the SNMP monitors. It’s able to determine device adjacency, but not necissarily the best placement for our interpretation. The good news is the devices can be moved to better align to what we’d like to see.
- Hover over the menu icon in the top left, then under Devices click on Views
- The Device Views will show some metric data on the top, and the topology on the bottom
- Click on Edit Topology Layout
- Devices in the topology view can be moved (drag-and-drop) to better represent the actual topology. Click Done Editing when the device positions match the lab topology.
As usual, if there were any issues you can add a comment to this post, or reach me on Twitter @Ipswitch.
Conclusion
The SNMP monitoring in ThousandEyes is now configured. One important note here is that this is a lab build. In a production environment steps should be taken to secure SNMP access. Restricting access to SNMP via ACL is always a good idea, as well as using SNMP v3 for authentication and encryption.
Later in this series the SNMP configuration will be revisited. When data is flowing on the lab network the SNMP views will be useful in getting more information on traffic flows. The SNMP data can also be used to help troubleshoot issues and to create alarms depending on network conditions.
What’s next
The next task is to define some scenarios to identify what needs to be monitored. The scenarios will be generic but should be relatable for any IT professional out there. After the scenarios are defined then the ThousandEyes tests can be built for each unique scenario.