SNMP Autodiscovery

Scan through your subnets and build an inventory of SNMP-enabled network devices

Extension

Product information
Release notes

Overview

This ActiveGate extension takes subnets and ranges of IP addresses along with SNMP credentials and scans through them to discover SNMP-enabled network devices. The devices are then reported as entities acting as an entry point to specialized extension configurations.

This is intended for users who:

Want to simplify the onboarding of network device monitoring in Dynatrace
Require a single pane of glass view over all network technologies

This extension enables you to:

Get an overview of all network devices, regardless of technology
Find out which Dynatrace Extension can best monitor each device
Access all extension network data in one place

Get started

After adding the extension to your environment, create a monitoring configuration.

Configuration parameters:

One or more discovery groups (select Add group). Each consists of:
- Network segment - a name or label to indicate which subnet or network segment these devices are part of
- One or more IPv4 or IPv6 configurations (select Add address). Each can be:
  - A range, separated by dash (for example 10.0.0.0-10.0.2.0)
  - A subnet, in CIDR notation (for example 10.0.20.0/24)
    - Individual addresses may be added with prefix length /32 (for example 192.168.0.48/32)
- The port to connect to for SNMP
- A set of credentials to use with SNMP. This consists of:
  - SNMP Version
  - Specific credentials based on the version
Parameters that control the discovery mechanism's behavior:
- Scanning frequency (in minutes): affects how frequently the scan runs
- Performance profile - should be selected based on the performance profile of the ActiveGate (learn more here)
- API Token: an access token with entities.read and metrics.read scopes. This enables additional processing of the ingested data.
A mandatory description which will also appear as an attribute on the discovered devices

Details

Once configured, the extension executes a simple snmpget request to any configured address and aims to extract 4 simple OIDs (sysName, sysDescr, sysObjectId, sysContact, sysLocation) which it then ingests as a log record.

In addition, the extension packages a topology and metrics model that brings together all network devices and maps them to available extensions that can get deeper insights into the health and performance of that specific technology.

This extension ingests 1 log record per detected device every 10 minutes, which is subject to license consumption.

Compatibility information

SNMP v2c or v3 (supported parameters are detailed here)
Minimum ActiveGate version 1.280
Minimum Dynatrace version 1.280

FAQ

The extension reports High CPU Usage, what can I do?

ActiveGates can be configured with several levels of resource utilization limits, called performance profiles. By default, more restrictive limits are applied. Whenever you plan to scan over more than 1000 IP addresses, it is recommended that you configure your ActiveGate to use the High limits profile. With particularly large setups, the Dedicated profile allows the extension to leverage even more of the ActiveGate's resources.

To enable the High limits profile on an ActiveGate, navigate to Deployment Status. From there, find your ActiveGate, expand the row, and click on Settings. On the Extension Execution Controller tab, the dropdown allows you to select a different profile.

To enable the Dedicated profile, please follow the instructions here. Note: when following the instructions, please leave the restInterface option enabled.

What performance is expected from this extension?

During its execution, the extension will limit resource utilization based on the ActiveGate performance profile:

Default: 5% CPU and 500 MB memory
High limits: 15% CPU and 700 MB memory
Dedicated limits: 30% CPU and 1500 MB memory

To understand expected load and execution times, stress tests were conducted based on our recommended ActiveGate sizing (labelled S (c7i.large), M (c7i.xlarge), and L (c7i.2xlarge)):

High limits profile:

| Load (IPs) | Time (S) | Time (M) | Time (L) |
| ---------- | -------- | -------- | -------- |
| 10,000     | 45 sec   | 42 sec   | 41 sec   |
| 30,000     | 5.3 min  | 3.1 min  | 2.2 min  |
| 100,000    | 20.7 min | 11.1 min | 7.6 min  |
| 200,000    | 42.6 min | 22.3 min | 15.2 min |
| 250,000    | 55 min   | 27 min   | 19 min   |

Dedicated limits profile:

| Load (IPs) | Time (S)  | Time (M) | Time (L) |
| ---------- | --------- | -------- | -------- |
| 250,000    | 28.5 min. | 19 min   | 18.4 min |

My monitored devices still appear unmonitored. How do I fix this?

To reduce the load on the scanner, but also allow monitored data to take priority, the extension requires an API Token. Please ensure the token has 'Read entities' permission. Also, ensure that the API routing module (restInterface) is enabled on the ActiveGate (even on a Dedicated profile).

Our specialized extensions are being updated to adopt the new network entity model. Currently, only devices monitored by the following extensions will be part of the topology:

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Extension content

Content typeNumber of items included

generic relationship

13

screen logs cards

1

screen chart groups

1

screen layout

3

screen actions

4

screen message cards

2

dashboards

1

generic type

4

list screen layout

2

screen properties

3

screen entities lists

2

metric metadata

14

Feature sets

Below is a complete list of the feature sets provided in this version. To ensure a good fit for your needs, individual feature sets can be activated and deactivated by your administrator during configuration.

Feature setsNumber of metrics included

Metric name	Metric key	Description	Unit
Devices OK	sfm.snmp_autodiscovery.devices_ok	The amount of addresses that responded to the scanner query as part of a given configuration.	Count
Devices scanned	sfm.snmp_autodiscovery.devices_scanned	The total amount of addresses that were scanned by the extension as part of a given configuration.	Count
Scan duration	sfm.snmp_autodiscovery.scan_duration	The time the extension took to scan through all addresses that are part of a given configuration.	NanoSecond

Full version history

To have more information on how to install the downloaded package, please follow the instructions on this page.

ReleaseDate

Full version history

Fixed in this version:

glibc dependency introduced by cryptography package was lowered to 2.17, allowing more Linux distributions to run the extension.

Full version history

Fixed in this version:

Bandwidth property on network:interface corrected to MegaBitPerSecond unit
oper.status dimension on some interface metrics was incorrectly labelled as "MAC address"
cryptography package explicitly listed as a dependency. This would cause "ciphering services not available" error on some installations.

Full version history

Fixed in this version:

Operational & Admin status attributes are missing for network:interface entity

Full version history

Improved in this version:

Network devices are discovered even with partial data available
Extension log files contain a more detailed breakdown of SNMP errors seen across devices
Configuration parameter Performance profile renamed
Description & documentation for API Token updated to reflect new scopes required

Full version history

⚠️ Breaking changes introduced:

The configuration parameter for Threads has been removed.
A new configuration parameter for Performance profile was introduced.
Due to these changes, a direct upgrade of your monitoring configurations will not be possible.

All configurations will have to be recreated.

Improved in this version:

The extension can handle 25 times the amount of IPs, in the same amount of time.
The extension automatically adjusts processing to stay within ActiveGate performance profile limits.

Fixed in this version:

Relationships between network interfaces and network ports would not be correctly identified

Full version history

New in this version:

Support for Credential Vault when using SNMP v2 and v3 credentials

Improved in this version:

Topology model updated to use sys.name instead of device.name when naming network:device entity instances.

Full version history

New in this version:

Network topology model was expanded to include neighbor discovery (LLDP) data
Additional routines added for relating network device entities to built-in topology
Entity UI was enabled for AppEngine usage

Improved in this version:

The network topology rules were enhanced to simplify the changes needed in other extensions to leverage the data
Additional rules were added to more reliably collect entity attributes

Fixed in this version:

Devices already existing before the first scan would not receive configuration and group labels as entity attributes

Full version history

New in this version:

self-monitoring feature set, which includes 3 diagnostic metrics:
- Scan duration
- Devices scanned
- Devices OK

Full version history

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