SNMP make work for you

Just because you are small doesn't mean you don't need to know about your servers, switches and key desktops. You do!

That's why years and years ago someone wrote SNMP or Simple Network Management Protocol. For who and when ... go Google it. Or go here: Net-SNMP

I just wanted to tell you how I use it on small networks to monitor key stuff. There are two basic parts. One is the part that runs on the client machines. That's your servers, switches and stuff. The other part is a monitor software that will grab all this snmp info and tell you about it. Here is a list of clients I use:

Windows

• built-in. Go to add/remove Programs, then Add/Remove Windows components then Management and Monitoring tools and then SNMP.
• For great Windows instructions go here: Windows Link

Linux

• really depends on the flavour. Most likely you have snmp already and just have to turn it on

Mac

• Ahh. I forgot

Hardware Devices

• You'll have to mess around with your device to see, but basically look for a box to check by snmp. You might have to define the community, default will be public (more later).
• In general good managed routers and switches will do snmp. Cheap non-managed ones will not.
  

Then the fun begins. There are a ridiculus number of network monitoring tools out there. All are free. Here are a few I've tried and like

• OpManager (runs on either Linux or Windows)
• Cacti (runs under Linux)
• Good setup instructions
  
• MRTG (runs on either Linux or Windows)
• setup instructions
  
• Zenoss (runs in it's own vmplayer)
• Setup instructions