How to configure SNMPv2 on Cisco IOS

Router
Besides syslog there is another method to store logging information to an external server.
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) can be used to collect statistics from
network devices including Cisco routers and switches.
SNMP consists of 2 items:

 NMS (Network Management System)

 SNMP Agents

The NMS is the external server where you want to store logging information. The SNMP
agents run on the network devices that we want to monitor. The NMS can query a SNMP
agent to collect information from the network device. SNMP has multiple versions, the most
popular ones being:

 SNMP version 2c
 SNMP version 3

SNMP version 3 offers security through authentication and encryption which SNMP version
2c does not. SNMP version 2c however is still pretty common. Let me show you a simple
example for SNMP version 2c:

Router(config)#snmp-server community TSHOOT ro

First we’ll have to configure a community string. Think of this as a password that the SNMP
agent and NMS have to agree upon. I called mine “TSHOOT”. The ro stands for read-only.
SNMP isn’t just for retrieving information; we can also use it to configure our network
devices. Let’s continue…

Router(config)#snmp-server location Amsterdam

Router(config)#snmp-server contact info@networklessons.com

These two steps are not required but it’s useful to specify a location and contact. This way
you’ll at least know where the device is located whenever you receive information through
SNMP. The messages that the SNMP agent sends to the NMS are called SNMP traps. Of
course we want to send these to an external server so I’ll configure the IP address of the
SNMP server:

Router(config)#snmp-server host 192.168.12.2 version 2c TSHOOT

I also have to specify the SNMP version and the community string. Last but not least, let’s
activate the traps:

Router(config)#snmp-server enable traps

If I use the snmp-server enable traps command it will enable all SNMP traps:

Router#show run | include traps

snmp-server enable traps snmp authentication linkdown linkup coldstart
warmstart
snmp-server enable traps vrrp
snmp-server enable traps ds1
snmp-server enable traps tty
snmp-server enable traps eigrp
snmp-server enable traps casa
snmp-server enable traps xgcp
snmp-server enable traps bulkstat collection transfer
snmp-server enable traps isdn call-information
snmp-server enable traps isdn layer2

This is only a portion of everything that you’ll see in the running-configuration. This is a
great way to test SNMP but on a production network it’s better to take a look at the different
traps and only enable the ones you feel are necessary. One of the SNMP traps in the example
above is related to EIGRP. If anything happens with the EIGRP routing protocol a SNMP
trap will be send towards the SNMP server.

Want to take a look for yourself? Here you will find the configuration of the router.

If you want to test this with a SNMP server then I can highly recommend to take a look at
Observium. They offer a free “community” edition of their network monitoring software that
supports many network devices out of the box (Cisco included).