Hi All --

Running Net-SNMP 5.4.1 on a wide range of Solaris and Linux boxes /w NPM 9.1 SP5  monitoring a range of params. 

The problem is with the "Physical memory" monitoring. 

Linux MemFree includes Cached memory. The cache is typically a filesystem cache where the kernel helpfully places recently read/written files for quick retrieval later.  

The issue is on all our Linux boxes that over time [as more and more files are read], Physical memory usage always climbs to 99% [with the kernel helpfully not allocating to the cache about 6megs :)] See attachment. Its the same story for all recent Linux kernels.

This isn't a problem in so far as actual memory usage = MemTotal - Cached, however it basically renders default memory monitoring on NPM useless [and from reading many forum postings, I presume most people just turn it off].

The thing is I want to know/alert if real memory usage gets above say 80%, etc.

# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:      3995632 kB
MemFree:         66236 kB
Buffers:        324112 kB
Cached:        2719860 kB
SwapCached:         68 kB
Active:        2466712 kB
Inactive:      1215628 kB

 free  -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3901       3851         50          0        316       2669
-/+ buffers/cache:        865       3036
Swap:        12001          0      12001

HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.1 = STRING: Physical memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.3 = STRING: Virtual memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.6 = STRING: Memory buffers
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.7 = STRING: Cached memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.8 = STRING: Shared memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.10 = STRING: Swap space

HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.1 = INTEGER: 3995632
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.3 = INTEGER: 16285348
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.6 = INTEGER: 324052
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.7 = INTEGER: 2750756
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.8 = INTEGER: 0
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.10 = INTEGER: 12289716

The free shows both views, including and excluding the cache/buffers.

Essentially I would like to graph/monitor the (MemTotal - (MemFree-Buffers)), or in OID talk, (hrStorageSize.1 - hrStorageDescr.7) 

So I spose to my question.   Can I modify the query to do some maths, and remove the cache from the calculation that will monitor the Free Memory? 

Cheers, Johhny.

Hi!!

I have two stacks of Cisco 3850's and both of them are reporting that the temperature is around 4 degrees Celsius.  I have had both Solarwinds Support and Cisco Support look at this. 

We did a SNMPWALK to check the MIB's and they seem correct, but when it comes to posting the temperatures in NPM, they are way off.

The switches say they are a happy 25 degrees Celsius.  That I can beleive becasue my closet is at a comfortable temerature.

I use solarwinds NPM9.5 could see cpu,memory,volumes,interface,but I could not see any about Checkpoint value.If I open both snmp of splat and cp,but I only can monitor port 161,when i add node with port 260,it always show no respond,I check the firewall log,it was accept,anyone can help me?

Thanks.

In case anyone is trying to get SNMPv3 working, I created a tutorial for our engineers and thought I would post the link for people here. https://packetpros.com/netmon/SNMPv3_Orion.html  [updated link]

Our Internet Cisco router is showing no interface errors, but Orion is showing interface transmit discard errors in the thousands. Shouldn't the counts match?

Hi!!

I have two stacks of Cisco 3850's and both of them are reporting that the temperature is around 4 degrees Celsius.  I have had both Solarwinds Support and Cisco Support look at this. 

We did a SNMPWALK to check the MIB's and they seem correct, but when it comes to posting the temperatures in NPM, they are way off.

The switches say they are a happy 25 degrees Celsius.  That I can beleive becasue my closet is at a comfortable temerature.

I use solarwinds NPM9.5 could see cpu,memory,volumes,interface,but I could not see any about Checkpoint value.If I open both snmp of splat and cp,but I only can monitor port 161,when i add node with port 260,it always show no respond,I check the firewall log,it was accept,anyone can help me?

Thanks.

I am planning to add some Cisco switches later today on NPM 9.5 I was wondering what's the SNMPv3 context section about? I know you can leave it blank.... I hope but I was wondering if I had to fill that in what would go in there

It would be good to know for future knowledge

Thanks

I'm pulling together a (semi-comprehensive) comparison of the impact of monitoring via WMI versus SNMP.

The upshot for those who are impatient: WMI monitoring (whether WMI polling or WMI via SAM) has a measurable - but manageable - impact on both the target device and the poller.

That said, if you are considering converting your monitoring of Windows devices from SNMP to WMI, what are you gaining? What are you losing?

Here's the start of my list. Please add your own in the comments below. Note that this is an off-the-top-of-my-head list. Coherency comes later.

SNMP Monitoring (as compared to WMI)

• CON Cannot monitor Windows Volume Mount points
• CON Challenges configuring earlier versions of Windows (NT, W2k)
• CON Requires additional non-default configuration actions (enabling snmp agent, setting RO string, etc)
• PRO Fewer ports for enterprise firewall rules (translates to an easier time getting security to agree to variances)
• PRO No single point of failure for access
• CON Changing SNMP string requires enterprise-wide changes
• CON Uses SNMP service start time for uptime metrics, rather than actual server reboot time
  • Work-around: set up UnDP for hrSystemUptime
• PRO Extremely efficient use of CPU, RAM and bandwidth (on both target and poller)

WMI Monitoring (as compared to SNMP)

• CON WMI-only devices cannot use custom pollers (UnDP).
  • Work-around: If the machine has EVER been an SNMP polled device, the snmp info is retained and custom pollers can be used (at least until the SNMP RO string changes)
• PRO Account settings used by SAM automatically
• CON significantly more firewall ports required
  • Work around: per-server config can nail down WMI to just a couple of ports
• CON will not work across a NAT-ed WAN connection (VPN, etc)
• CON one password change in AD can cripple monitoring
• CON cannot monitor topology
• PRO doesn't try to monitor RAM as a volume (why does NPM do that, anyway?!?)
• PRO uses REAL reboot time for uptime metrics
• CON less efficient (vis a vis SNMP) use of CPU, RAM and bandwidth on both target and poller

OK guys, there's the start of my list. What did I miss?

I see a lot of questions regrading monitoring Windows Disk I/O so I figured I would quickly highlight two different ways I have been able to accomplish this.  The first way utilizes SNMP Informant Standard which is a free SNMP extensibility agent that you can install on Windows systems and can be monitored using just NPM and UnDP's.  The second way utilizes WMI counters, it doesn't require anything special to be installed on the Windows systems but will require APM.

NPM & SNMP Informant

See my UnDP's uploaded to the content exchange located Windows Disk IO Using SNMP Informantwhich includes a link to SNMP Informant.  I personally prefer this method to get disk I/O.  Below is a screenshot of what it looks like on one of my systems.

APM & WMI Counters

See my APM Template that I have uploaded to the Content Exchange located Windows Disk I/O.  Below is a screenshot of what this method looks like on one of my systems (note in this example I show only Reads but the template includes both Reads and Writes).

Please feel free to provide feedback.  Also, if you have other ways that you have accomplished Disk I/O monitoring with Orion I would be interested in hearing about it.

P.S.  I tried to post this, or at least a version of this yesterday but it didn't post, hopefully this one will work.

I use solarwinds NPM9.5 could see cpu,memory,volumes,interface,but I could not see any about Checkpoint value.If I open both snmp of splat and cp,but I only can monitor port 161,when i add node with port 260,it always show no respond,I check the firewall log,it was accept,anyone can help me?

Thanks.

I am planning to add some Cisco switches later today on NPM 9.5 I was wondering what's the SNMPv3 context section about? I know you can leave it blank.... I hope but I was wondering if I had to fill that in what would go in there

It would be good to know for future knowledge

Thanks

I'm pulling together a (semi-comprehensive) comparison of the impact of monitoring via WMI versus SNMP.

The upshot for those who are impatient: WMI monitoring (whether WMI polling or WMI via SAM) has a measurable - but manageable - impact on both the target device and the poller.

That said, if you are considering converting your monitoring of Windows devices from SNMP to WMI, what are you gaining? What are you losing?

Here's the start of my list. Please add your own in the comments below. Note that this is an off-the-top-of-my-head list. Coherency comes later.

SNMP Monitoring (as compared to WMI)

• CON Cannot monitor Windows Volume Mount points
• CON Challenges configuring earlier versions of Windows (NT, W2k)
• CON Requires additional non-default configuration actions (enabling snmp agent, setting RO string, etc)
• PRO Fewer ports for enterprise firewall rules (translates to an easier time getting security to agree to variances)
• PRO No single point of failure for access
• CON Changing SNMP string requires enterprise-wide changes
• CON Uses SNMP service start time for uptime metrics, rather than actual server reboot time
  • Work-around: set up UnDP for hrSystemUptime
• PRO Extremely efficient use of CPU, RAM and bandwidth (on both target and poller)

WMI Monitoring (as compared to SNMP)

• CON WMI-only devices cannot use custom pollers (UnDP).
  • Work-around: If the machine has EVER been an SNMP polled device, the snmp info is retained and custom pollers can be used (at least until the SNMP RO string changes)
• PRO Account settings used by SAM automatically
• CON significantly more firewall ports required
  • Work around: per-server config can nail down WMI to just a couple of ports
• CON will not work across a NAT-ed WAN connection (VPN, etc)
• CON one password change in AD can cripple monitoring
• CON cannot monitor topology
• PRO doesn't try to monitor RAM as a volume (why does NPM do that, anyway?!?)
• PRO uses REAL reboot time for uptime metrics
• CON less efficient (vis a vis SNMP) use of CPU, RAM and bandwidth on both target and poller

OK guys, there's the start of my list. What did I miss?

Hi All --

Running Net-SNMP 5.4.1 on a wide range of Solaris and Linux boxes /w NPM 9.1 SP5  monitoring a range of params. 

The problem is with the "Physical memory" monitoring. 

Linux MemFree includes Cached memory. The cache is typically a filesystem cache where the kernel helpfully places recently read/written files for quick retrieval later.  

The issue is on all our Linux boxes that over time [as more and more files are read], Physical memory usage always climbs to 99% [with the kernel helpfully not allocating to the cache about 6megs :)] See attachment. Its the same story for all recent Linux kernels.

This isn't a problem in so far as actual memory usage = MemTotal - Cached, however it basically renders default memory monitoring on NPM useless [and from reading many forum postings, I presume most people just turn it off].

The thing is I want to know/alert if real memory usage gets above say 80%, etc.

# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:      3995632 kB
MemFree:         66236 kB
Buffers:        324112 kB
Cached:        2719860 kB
SwapCached:         68 kB
Active:        2466712 kB
Inactive:      1215628 kB

 free  -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3901       3851         50          0        316       2669
-/+ buffers/cache:        865       3036
Swap:        12001          0      12001

HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.1 = STRING: Physical memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.3 = STRING: Virtual memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.6 = STRING: Memory buffers
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.7 = STRING: Cached memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.8 = STRING: Shared memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.10 = STRING: Swap space

HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.1 = INTEGER: 3995632
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.3 = INTEGER: 16285348
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.6 = INTEGER: 324052
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.7 = INTEGER: 2750756
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.8 = INTEGER: 0
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.10 = INTEGER: 12289716

The free shows both views, including and excluding the cache/buffers.

Essentially I would like to graph/monitor the (MemTotal - (MemFree-Buffers)), or in OID talk, (hrStorageSize.1 - hrStorageDescr.7) 

So I spose to my question.   Can I modify the query to do some maths, and remove the cache from the calculation that will monitor the Free Memory? 

Cheers, Johhny.

Do you have ideas on how SolarWinds can give you better data on your F5 devices?

Then we want you to join us for a 90 minute virtual focus group (two dates and times to choose from below). In this session you will see screen shots of early concepts, that we fully expect you to poke holes in, but mostly we want to here your ideas.

If you'd like to participate, email me at katie.barbaro@solarwinds.com and let me know which of the two dates/times to put you down for. We are limited to 6 people to a session (first come, first served) so be sure to email me ASAP.

Session Dates/Times

Tuesday, August 26th from 11AM - 12:30PM Central Time

Thursday, August 28th from 10AM - 11:30AM Central Time

Those who participate will receive 2,000 thwack points and some other SolarWinds goodies.

Hi all,

I think this may fall under "be careful what you wish for" but here goes. I've just upgraded to NPM 10.4 and have found some "interesting" things with the hardware health monitoring:

Does anyone know A) what the Te interface Bias Current Sensors are and B) how to stop NPM from looking at them? So far they are showing on my VSS pairs and 3750-X switches.

Regards,

John

Hi!!

I have two stacks of Cisco 3850's and both of them are reporting that the temperature is around 4 degrees Celsius.  I have had both Solarwinds Support and Cisco Support look at this. 

We did a SNMPWALK to check the MIB's and they seem correct, but when it comes to posting the temperatures in NPM, they are way off.

The switches say they are a happy 25 degrees Celsius.  That I can beleive becasue my closet is at a comfortable temerature.

I am planning to add some Cisco switches later today on NPM 9.5 I was wondering what's the SNMPv3 context section about? I know you can leave it blank.... I hope but I was wondering if I had to fill that in what would go in there

It would be good to know for future knowledge

Thanks

Hi All --

Running Net-SNMP 5.4.1 on a wide range of Solaris and Linux boxes /w NPM 9.1 SP5  monitoring a range of params. 

The problem is with the "Physical memory" monitoring. 

Linux MemFree includes Cached memory. The cache is typically a filesystem cache where the kernel helpfully places recently read/written files for quick retrieval later.  

The issue is on all our Linux boxes that over time [as more and more files are read], Physical memory usage always climbs to 99% [with the kernel helpfully not allocating to the cache about 6megs :)] See attachment. Its the same story for all recent Linux kernels.

This isn't a problem in so far as actual memory usage = MemTotal - Cached, however it basically renders default memory monitoring on NPM useless [and from reading many forum postings, I presume most people just turn it off].

The thing is I want to know/alert if real memory usage gets above say 80%, etc.

# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:      3995632 kB
MemFree:         66236 kB
Buffers:        324112 kB
Cached:        2719860 kB
SwapCached:         68 kB
Active:        2466712 kB
Inactive:      1215628 kB

 free  -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3901       3851         50          0        316       2669
-/+ buffers/cache:        865       3036
Swap:        12001          0      12001

HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.1 = STRING: Physical memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.3 = STRING: Virtual memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.6 = STRING: Memory buffers
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.7 = STRING: Cached memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.8 = STRING: Shared memory
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageDescr.10 = STRING: Swap space

HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.1 = INTEGER: 3995632
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.3 = INTEGER: 16285348
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.6 = INTEGER: 324052
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.7 = INTEGER: 2750756
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.8 = INTEGER: 0
HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrStorageSize.10 = INTEGER: 12289716

The free shows both views, including and excluding the cache/buffers.

Essentially I would like to graph/monitor the (MemTotal - (MemFree-Buffers)), or in OID talk, (hrStorageSize.1 - hrStorageDescr.7) 

So I spose to my question.   Can I modify the query to do some maths, and remove the cache from the calculation that will monitor the Free Memory? 

Cheers, Johhny.