[mrtg] Re: MRTG 2.8.11 & smnp4nt - SNMP4NT AUTHOR'S RESPONSE

Tue Jan 25 08:35:52 MET 2000

Hello Group.

I have seen now a few messages (about half a dozen or so) indicating that
portions of the PERFMIB.MIB from SNMP4NT do not seem to be working properly.
Not bad I s'pose considering the number of downloads.  Still, it concerns me
to see them, since it should be a "no brainer" to implement.

Be assured that I don't just slap up a new release without making sure it is
working.  Prior to submitting the ZIP for download I ALWAYS test, on the Web
Server itself (Generic AMD-300, NT4 Server-SP5), my Toshiba PII/233 notebook
(NT4 Server-SP6a) and my Backup Domain Controller (486DX4/100, NT4
Server-SP5).  I also use the PERFMIB.MIB in production systems where I work,
and my MRTG is always the most current (2.8.11).

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT SNMP4NT.ZIP CONTAINS A PERFMIB.MIB/MIB.BIN THAT
CONTAINS REFERENCES TO PERFORMANCE COUNTERS THAT MAY NOT EXIST ON THE SYSTEM
YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO MONITOR (not shouting, just highlighting an area that
even got ME once or twice).  If you try to reference an OID that "points" to
a non-existant counter, then SNMP will not return valid data.  Check the
SNMP4NT Web Page (select the "available Statistics" button, and compare the
embedded counters supported by SNMP4NT and the Counters available in
Performance Monitor on the system that is giving you grief.

One suggestion... BACK UP YOUR SNMP REGISTRY HIVE BEFORE MIBINST.BAT.  That
way you could restore it and manually add the PerformanceAgent registry
entries if you need to.

What I know to be true ...

- As a general rule, it is a good idea to have SNMP installed BEFORE any
other applications, in case they check SNMP and only install SNMP support if
SNMP is there.  IIS is an example of an App that must "see" SNMP in order to
install SNMP suport. (you CAN add SNMP support later, but it is a pain in
the ASS!)

- On Windows NT 4/SP5+, the update of the SNMP registry hive seems to be a
bit more unstable than Good Ol' SP4.

- I have put the registration of ther Performance Counter MIB at #9 to avoid
conflicts with other Extensible Agents that may be at numbers lower than
that.  Perhaps you need to increment this number.

- I also know that sometimes the RFC1156Agent and LanManagerMib2Agent
references in the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/SNMP/Parameters/Extensi
onAgents hive just "disappear" and need to be rebuilt. Don't ask me why, I
am only ADDING the PerformanceAgent as number 9 and telling the system where
to find perfmib.dll by adding the hive HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software
Microsoft/PerformanceAgent/CurrentVersion.  Nothing tricky.

- One thing I you could try is editing the mibinst.bat and/or perfm.bat and
commenting out the copying of perfmib.dll if it is newer (probably is) than
the version you are running in the system32 directory.

- Unfortunately, Microsoft's implementation (and support) of SNMP
(particularly as it pertains to extracting performance counters) is somewhat
less than perfect.  In fact, they no longer provide or support perf2mib.exe
in their resource kit, so we have to work with what we can get.

If you are having problems and would like some help, please send me an email
containing the following information:

1) Windows NT version
2) Service Pack Version
3) MS BackOffice addons and version (i.e. Proxy Server 2, Exchange 5.5, IIS
4, Option Pack 4)
4) SNMP4NT.ZIP version (date)
5) Description of problem (what OIDs do not work, which ones do, etc.)

Please attach a registry dump of the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/SNMP hive (done like
so:)

1) Start/Run/regedt32
2) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/SNMP
3) BE SURE THAT THE SNMP hive is highlighted!!
4) Select Registry/Save Key, and save it to a temp directory (i.e.
c:\temp\snmp_bad.reg)

I will look through the key, and see if there is a glaring (i.e. common)
problem amongst the "broken" instances of SNMP4NT.  Any errors found will be
immediately addressed, and SNMP4NT.ZIP will be updated.

Thanks for your help, comments, and contributions to this matter.  I do this
as a hobby, so response may not be as expedicous as you would like.  Be
gentle!  I do my best to provide a stable product.

Regards to all!

Garth

Garth K. Williams

email: garth.williams at home.com
web: http://www.wtcs.org/snmp4tpc
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-----Original Message-----
From: mrtg-bounce at list.ee.ethz.ch [mailto:mrtg-bounce at list.ee.ethz.ch]On
Behalf Of Brian Day
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 3:56 PM
Cc: MRTG NewsGroup (E-mail)
Subject: [mrtg] MRTG 2.8.11 & smnp4nt

Hi everyone,

    Has anyone else had difficulty getting the MIB files with snmp4nt to
work properly? It seems like some of it works, and some don't. While
attempting to read free disk space I cannot get any results back, in fact I
get invalid OID errors coming back to me. Yet the same compiled MIB and BIN
files will read information from the NIC card on the same server. I've read
over the snmp4tpc page as much as I can, fiddled with tons of settings,
things just don't seem to be working.

    Any examples would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

Brian
scorp at tmlp.com

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