NXTI: A Next Level SNMP Trap Interface
Interested in SNMP trap monitoring but not sure where to start? Then read on! In this article, we’ll discuss NXTI (the Nagios XI SNMP Trap Interface), one of the powerful Enterprise Edition features of Nagios XI.
SNMP capabilities are ubiquitous across the critical elements of your deployment, and the protocol quantifies countless metrics that can be monitored to keep an eye on the status and performance of both legacy and modern equipment in your infrastructure.
Active SNMP checks, where Nagios XI polls OIDs (Object IDs) for data, tend to be fairly accessible, especially using built-in tools like the Network Switch and Router Wizard. But what about SNMP traps? As powerful as this passive approach to SNMP monitoring is, providing rapid results when events occur, traps can be difficult to configure for monitoring. That’s where NXTI (the Nagios XI SNMP Trap Interface) comes in.
Without NXTI
On the plus side, Nagios XI is fully capable of monitoring, alerting, and reporting on SNMP traps even in the Standard edition. However, trap definitions are handled on the command line with flat text files, which adds an additional layer of complexity to an already complicated monitoring method. If you’re a command line wiz and know traps well, this may not be a roadblock, but for everyone else the value of NXTI is huge, making trap monitoring more accessible.
The NXTI Advantage
NXTI provides a way to manage your trap settings right from the Nagios XI GUI, enabling you to:
- View, Add, Edit, Copy, Delete, and Disable trap definitions.
- Configure passive checks based on traps.
- View and Delete received trap logs.
- Search and sort both trap definitions and received trap logs.
- Monitor the
snmpttprocess. - Locally test
snmptrapd/snmpttfunctionality.
Quite simply, NXTI helps you go from this:
To this:
Note that in order to monitor incoming traps that match your trap definition, you’ll need to check the Enable Passive Service Setup checkbox.
You can then run the SNMP Trap Wizard to begin monitoring the traps. If for some reason you do not see status results in the SNMP trap service you set up for traps you’ve received, check in Admin > Monitoring Config > Unconfigured Objects, in case there is a mismatch between the IP/FQDN you set in Nagios for the target host and the IP/FQDN contained in the trap.
The Advanced Section
The Advanced tab of NXTI (at the top right of the NXTI menu) provides a variety of useful functions, including the ability to add an example trap definition, to send a test trap, and even to send a custom test trap for more specific testing of trap features and functions. It also provides a way to view the Unknown Trap Log, which lists any traps XI receives that don’t have a matching trap definition.
To learn more about managing SNMP traps with NXTI, you can refer to the complete guide:
SNMP Traps with NXTI in Nagios XI
If you’d like to learn more about everything SNMP, this excellent video series is a great resource:
Nagios XI SNMP Monitoring Series
The resources on managing MIBs (SNMP Management Information Bases) may come in handy as well:
Finally, you can dig into the entire set of Enterprise Edition features here:
