What are Free SNMP management probes?

Question

I have just started to learn SNMP protocols.

My colleague asks me to "understand the use of free SNMP management probes (available on the internet or in distribution supervision packages)".

Unfortunately I have no clear idea of what is he asking for..

I have installed on my Debian snmp and snmpd. I have already understood how to make requests using different MIBs (for example snmpget localhost -v 2c -c public .1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.11.9.0 [to monitor cpu, for example])

But I just cannot understand what he means the use of free SNMP management probes... - something I can download ... where? For free? You have to pay normally for these probes?

If I am not completely mistaken, snmp probes are installed on agents to get information from distant machines?

Where can I download these probes?

Or, if you can correct me - that would be great to understand what is required.

Answer 1

"Probe" is not really a proper technical term or designation for a specific function within the SNMP protocols (not that I am aware of). However, it is a common word that in English is often used when discussing systems monitoring.

I believe your colleague is referring to free SNMP based monitoring and management software in general. There are many free and not-free choices. Here are a few popular ones:

• Cacti
• Solarwinds NMP
• WhatsUpGold

Answer 2

Thank you.

The use of the software was an option, but the simplest way was the following:

apt update

install either

apt install nagios-plugins-contrib

or

apt install monitoring-plugins-basic

Enter the directory where probes (well, it's understood now that he was not talking about "probes" but ... plugins!) are located e.g.

cd /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/

Choose the plugin and use it, for example:

./check_memory