Tuesday 14 December 2010

SNMP setup on Windows for Zenoss

Intenally we use Zenoss to monitor our servers and systems. In order for Zenoss to query lots of details on the windows servers we are using the free snmp informant program on each Windows host. http://www.snmp-informant.com/ the free version has distribution restrictions but can be used for any purpose for free.

To get this working (based on Win 2003 - other versions of windows might deviate slightly):

  1. In Add Remove Programs, windows components, inside "Management and monitoring Tools" select "Simple network management Protocol". This will probably require the windows installation media.
  2. While in there install the "WMI SNMP Provider" which is also needed by Zenoss.
  3. Windows SNMP service properties, security add community name you want to use to secure this service, read only. Accept snmp packets from specific hosts.
  4. Install SNMP informant
  5. Allow port 161 UDP through firewall for SNMP traffic
A Zenoss server will now be able to report on CPU, HDD, software installed etc.

Troubleshooting:
If WMI not connecting Check firewall
#netsh firewall set service RemoteAdmin enable to enable WMI
A great page for identifying issues is http://community.zenoss.org/docs/DOC-2520 which lists most common errors with monitoring windows devices.

2 comments:

  1. I used Total network monitor for monitoring servers on Windows, but I want to try something new for compare. Zenoss looks good, thanks for the article.

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  2. Ok, but tell me please, did anyone test this protocol for Windows 10? My last attempt to set Zenoss had significant consequences, I hadn't only to reboot Windows package again but also to add api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll missing https://fix4dll.com/apimswincrtruntimel110_dll. What's the matter, in truth, I still haven't found out...
    But most likely I'll not risk the next time installing software and connections to the server myself, it will be better
    to find someone more knowledgeable)

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