MikroTik RouterOS SNMP Service

Document revision 11-Jul-2002
This document applies to the MikroTik RouterOS V2.5

Overview

SNMP is a network protocol that allows managing many network devices from one location. MikroTik RouterOS supports SNMPv2 (Simple Network Management Protocol version 2) as defined by RFC 1592. Installation of the SNMP package makes the router into an SNMP agent.

The MikroTik RouterOS supports:

SNMPv2 only;
Read-only access is provided to the NMS (network management system);
User defined communities are supported;
No Trap support.

Contents of the Manual

The following topics are covered in this manual:

Installation
Hardware Resource Usage
SNMP Setup
Tools for SNMP Data Collection and Analysis
Example of using MRTG with Mikrotik SNMP
Additional Resources

Installation

The 'snmp-2.x.y.npk' (less than 150KB) package for installation of SNMP is required. The package can be downloaded from MikroTik’s web page www.mikrotik.com. To install the package, please upload it to the router with ftp and reboot. You may check to see if the SNMP package is installed with the command:

[MikroTik] > system package print                                              
Flags: I - invalid 
  #   NAME                  VERSION              BUILD-TIME           UNINSTALL
  0   snmp                  2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:07:13 no       
  1   routing               2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:18:41 no       
  2   ssh                   2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:08:54 no       
  3   system                2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:06:30 no       
  4   dhcp                  2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:08:10 no       
  5   ppp                   2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:11:07 no       
  6   pppoe                 2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:12:50 no       
  7   pptp                  2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:11:47 no       
  8   bgp                   2.5                  apr/03/2002 10:19:15 no       
[MikroTik] >

Line 0 shows that the SNMP package is installed.

Hardware Resource Usage

When the SNMP is enabled, it uses approximately 2MB of RAM. When using SNMP, memory usage estimates should be made, system resources should be monitored, and RAM should be increased accordingly.

SNMP Setup

SNMP management can be accessed under the /snmp menu. Use the set command to configure it and enable the service:

[MikroTik] snmp> set contact=Sysadmin-555-1212 location=MikroTik enabled=yes   
[MikroTik] snmp> print                                                         
     enabled: yes
     contact: Sysadmin-555-1212
    location: MikroTik
[MikroTik] snmp>

Description of arguments:

contact-info, location - Informative only settings for the NMS.
enabled - (yes / no). SNMP service is disabled by default.

SNMP Communities

Community management can be accessed under the '/snmp community' menu. The default community for the SNMP is "public":

[MikroTik] snmp> community                                                     
[MikroTik] snmp community> print                                               
  # NAME                                                            READ-ACCESS
  0 public                                                          yes        
[MikroTik] snmp community>

Argument description:

name - Community name.
read-access - (yes / no) Enables or disables the read access for the community.

You can add new communities and change the read access type, for example:

[MikroTik] snmp community> set public read-access=no ; add name=private        
[MikroTik] snmp community> print                                               
  # NAME                                                            READ-ACCESS
  0 public                                                          no         
  1 private                                                         no         
[MikroTik] snmp community>

Tools for SNMP Data Collection and Analysis

MRTG (Multi Router Traffic Grapher) is the most commonly used SNMP monitor.

http://ee-staff.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/mrtg/

Example of using MRTG with Mikrotik SNMP

Here is a example configuration file for MRTG to monitor network card traffic on Mikrotik 2.5.x This file was created with MRTG v2.9.17 cfgmaker on a linux computer. This is a only an example file.

MRTG Sample Configuration

For more information read the MRTG documentation: Configuration Reference

Additional Resources

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1592.txt
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/snmp.htm