SNMP itself is a front-end for gathering statistics and gaining data about a network device in terms of client-server relationship. The network manager (client program) connects virtually to the SNMP agent (server program) which tests the network device, and returns back information about the device's status to the manager. The list of possible tests, collection of objects and the list of control values is called Management Information Base (MIB).

The main advance against traditional network management tools such as "ping", and "netstat" is in SNMP interoperability and universality. With SNMP you can monitor almost any network device regardless the fact it is hardware or software. SNMP gives you control to the information on the manageable device. The SNMP support in Icewarp Server is mainly purposed for integrators and developers. Majority of "normal" administrators would satisfy with ordinary statistics inside Icewarp Server Administration Console.

Usage with Icewarp Server

• First you have to enable SNMP support in your Icewarp Server. You can do it in the System/Advanced/Protocol section:

  

• Icewarp Server has a it's own private MIB. You can find the list of the possibilities of SNMP protocol usage within Icewarp Server in the following file - snmp-mib.txt. The file also defines the structure of the queries and so called OIDs (object ID). The OIDs can be combined in many ways to fetch info about various aspect of your server.
• To be able to interpret these you need also an SNMP network manager utility for querying and connecting to your server. You can use e.g. snmpget or snmpwalk utilities to display the information http://net-snmp.sourceforge.net/.

Examples

Here are some examples of usage snmpwalk with Icewarp SNMP server:

The syntax for diplaying the top node:

snmpwalk -v 1 -c public <host> 1.3.23736.1.2.1.1.1

How to display all POP3 information:

snmpwalk -v 1 -c public <host> 1.3.23736.1.2.1.1.2.2

Jan Ramba, jan (at) icewarp (dot) com