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How to configure SNMP on Linux as a monitoring source for Rational Performance Tester

How To


Summary

You can use resource monitoring to capture data, such as processor or memory usage, while running a test schedule.

Resource monitoring can provide a comprehensive view of a system under test, to aid in problem determination. The system under test can be in the cloud or on-premise.

SNMP or Simple Network Management Protocol is one of the supported resources. However, if SNMP itself isn't configured correctly then it can't be added as a resource monitoring source.

Objective

This will show the steps needed to configure SNMP on a RHEL 7 machine so it can be used as a monitoring source in Rational Performance Tester (RPT).
SNMP will be configured on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.3 machine. 
We will use UCD SNMP MIB since it contains the most system performance data  On the Linux machine it's located in
the /usr/share/snmp/mibs directory.

Steps

On the Linux machine
1.  cd /etc/snmpd
2. Make a backup of the original snmpd.conf file:
          cp snmpd.conf snmpd.conf.backup
3.  Edit the snmpd.conf file. At the bottom add these 3 lines but use your own syslocation and syscontact information:
          rocommunity public default
          syslocation "HCL"
         syscontact first.last@xxx.com
snmpd.conf
5. In the same file, add this single line to expose more data resources:
       view    systemview    included   .1.3.6
snmpd.conf
6. Start or Restart the snmpd service:
      [root@COMP-2853-1 snmp]# service snmpd start
      Redirecting to /bin/systemctl start  snmpd.service
     [root@COMP-2853-1 snmp]#
or
       [root@COMP-853-1 snmp]# service snmpd reload
       Redirecting to /bin/systemctl reload  snmpd.service
      [root@COMP-853-1 snmp]#
7.  Do a snmpwalk to confirm the UCD-SNMP-MIB counters are exposed as output:
        snmpwalk -v2c -c public localhost UCD-SNMP-MIB::systemStats
snmpwalk
Configuration of snmp on the Linux machine is now complete
On the RPT machine:
1. Copy these two files from the Linux machine to the RPT workbench machine:
UCD-SNMP-MIB.txt
SNMPv2-TC.txt
The latter file is a dependency for the first one.
For example, put these files in:
c:\temp\mib
2. Rename the two files to have an extension of ".mib" instead of ".txt"
mib
3. Bring up a schedule in RPT
4. Select Resource Monitoring the Add... to create a new location
location
5. Fill in the dialog as shown below.  We need:
  • hostname of the Linux machine
  • default port
  • SNMP as a Data Source
  • MIB path
  • Community string of "public"
snmpconfig
6. Click on the Resource tab and choose which counters to monitor.  Memory is a good one to start with.
memory
7. Run your schedule and you'll see the resources under the Resources tab on the left.
resources

Additional Information

Monitoring Performance with Net-SNMP:
Monitoring Resource data:

Document Location

Worldwide

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Product Synonym

RPT

Document Information

Modified date:
07 January 2021

UID

ibm10883172

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