DESCRIPTION
The Net-SNMP notification receiver (trap daemon) uses one or more configuration files to control its operation and how incoming traps (and INFORM requests) should be processed. This file (snmptrapd.conf) can be located in one of several locations, as described in the snmp_config
IMPORTANT
Previously, snmptrapd would accept all incoming notifications, and log them automatically (even if no explicit configuration was provided). Starting with release 5.3, access control checks will be applied to incoming notifications. If snmptrapd is run without a suitable configuration file (or equivalent access control settings), then such traps WILL NOT be processed. See the section ACCESS CONTROL for more details.
As with the agent configuration, the snmptrapd.conf directives can be divided into four distinct groups.
TRAPD BEHAVIOUR
- snmpTrapdAddr [<transport-specifier>:]<transport-address>[,...]
-
defines a list of listening addresses, on which to receive incoming SNMP notifications. See the section LISTENING ADDRESSES in the snmpd manual page for more information about the format of listening addresses.
The default behaviour is to listen on UDP port 162 on all IPv4 interfaces.
- doNotRetainNotificationLogs yes
-
disables support for the NOTIFICATION-LOG-MIB. Normally the snmptrapd program keeps a record of the traps received, which can be retrieved by querying the nlmLogTable and nlmLogvariableTable tables. This directive can be used to suppress this behaviour.
See the snmptrapd manual page and the NOTIFICATION-LOG-MIB for details.
doNotLogTraps yes-
disables the logging of notifications altogether. This is useful if the snmptrapd application should only run traphandle hooks and should not log traps to any location.
- doNotFork yes
-
do not fork from the calling shell.
- pidFile PATH
-
defines a file in which to store the process ID of the notification receiver. By default, this ID is not saved.
ACCESS CONTROL
Starting with release 5.3, it is necessary to explicitly specify who is authorised to send traps and informs to the notification receiver (and what types of processing these are allowed to trigger). This uses an extension of the VACM model, used in the main SNMP agent.
There are currently three types of processing that can be specified:
- log
-
log the details of the notification - either in a specified file, to standard output (or stderr), or via syslog (or similar).
- execute
-
pass the details of the trap to a specified handler program, including embedded perl.
- net
-
forward the trap to another notification receiver.
In the following directives, TYPES will be a (comma-separated) list of one or more of these tokens. Most commonly, this will typically be log,execute,net to cover any style of processing for a particular category of notification. But it is perfectly possible (even desirable) to limit certain notification sources to selected processing only.
- authCommunity TYPES COMMUNITY
[SOURCE [OID |
-v VIEW]] -
authorises traps (and SNMPv2c INFORM requests) with the specified community to trigger the types of processing listed. By default, this will allow any notification using this community to be processed. The SOURCE field can be used to specify that the configuration should only apply to notifications received from particular sources - see snmpd.conf for more details.
- authUser TYPES [
-s MODEL] USER [LEVEL [OID |-v VIEW]] -
authorises SNMPv3 notifications with the specified user to trigger the types of processing listed. By default, this will accept authenticated requests. (authNoPriv or authPriv). The LEVEL field can be used to allow unauthenticated notifications (noauth), or to require encryption (priv), just as for the SNMP agent.
With both of these directives, the OID (or
-v VIEW) field can be used to retrict this configuration to the processing of particular notifications.- Note:
- Unlike the VACM processing described in RFC 3415, this view is only matched against the snmpTrapOID value of the incoming notification. It is not applied to the payload varbinds held within that notification.
- authGroup TYPES [
-s MODEL] GROUP [LEVEL [OID |-v VIEW]] - authAccess TYPES [
-s MODEL] GROUP VIEW [LEVEL [CONTEXT]] - authAccess TYPES GROUP CONTEXT MODEL LEVEL PREFIX VIEW TYPES
-
authorise notifications in the specified GROUP (configured using the group directive) to trigger the types of processing listed. See snmpd.conf for more details.
- createUser [
-e ENGINEID] username (MD5|SHA|SHA-512|SHA-384|SHA-256|SHA-224) authpassphrase [DES|AES] -
See the snmpd.conf manual page for a description of how to create SNMPv3 users. This is roughly the same, but the file name changes to snmptrapd.conf from snmpd.conf.
- disableAuthorization yes
-
will disable the above access control checks, and revert to the previous behaviour of accepting all incoming notifications.
LOGGING
- format1 FORMAT
- format2 FORMAT
-
specify the format used to display SNMPv1 TRAPs and SNMPv2 notifications respectively. Note that SNMPv2c and SNMPv3 both use the same SNMPv2 PDU format.
- format DESTINATION FORMAT
-
specify the format used for different destinations. DESTINATION is one of: print, print1, print2, syslog, syslog1, syslog2, execute, execute1, execute2. print1 is used for printing SNMPv1 traps, print2 is for SNMPv2. print is used for both versions. syslog is similarly used when sending traps to syslog, and execute used when sending traps to a program such as traptoemail.
The default formats are
format print1 %.4y-%.2m-%.2l %.2h:%.2j:%.2k %B [%b] (via %A [%a]): %N\n\t%W Trap (%q) Uptime: %#T\n%v\n format print2 %.4y-%.2m-%.2l %.2h:%.2j:%.2k %B [%b]:\n%v\n format syslog1 %a: %W Trap (%q) Uptime: %#T%#v\n format syslog2 %B [%b]: Trap %#v\n format execute %B\n%b\n%V\n%v\n
See snmptrapd for the layout characters available.
- ignoreAuthFailure yes
-
instructs the receiver to ignore authenticationFailure traps.
- Note:
- This currently only affects the logging of such notifications. authenticationFailure traps will still be passed to trap handler scripts, and forwarded to other notification receivers. This behaviour should not be relied on, as it is likely to change in future versions.
- logOption string
-
specifies where notifications should be logged - to standard output, standard error, a specified file or via syslog. See the section LOGGING OPTIONS in the snmpcmd manual page for details.
- outputOption string
-
specifies various characteristics of how OIDs and other values should be displayed. See the section OUTPUT OPTIONS in the snmpcmd manual page for details.
DESCRIPTION
The snmptrapd.conf file is the configuration file(s) which define how the Net-SNMP SNMP trap receiving daemon operates when it receives a trap. These files may contain any of the directives found in the DIRECTIVES section below. This file is not required for the daemon to operate, receive, or report traps. It is used solely as a method of providing extensibility to the trap daemon.
NOTIFICATION PROCESSING
As well as logging incoming notifications, they can also be forwarded on to another notification receiver, or passed to an external program for specialised processing.
- traphandle OID|default PROGRAM [ARGS ...]
-
invokes the specified PROGRAM (with the given arguments) whenever a notification is received that matches the OID token. For SNMPv2c and SNMPv3 notifications, this token will be compared against the snmpTrapOID value taken from the notification. For SNMPv1 traps, the generic and specific trap values and the enterprise OID will be converted into the equivalent OID (following RFC 2576).
Typically, the OID token will be the name (or numeric OID) of a NOTIFICATION-TYPE object, and the specified program will be invoked for notifications that match this OID exactly. However this token also supports a simple form of wildcard suffixing. By appending the character '*' to the OID token, the corresponding program will be invoked for any notification based within subtree rooted at the specified OID. For example, an OID token of .1.3.6.1.4.1* would match any enterprise specific notification (including the specified OID itself). An OID token of .1.3.6.1.4.1.* would work in much the same way, but would not match this exact OID - just notifications that lay strictly below this root. Note that this syntax does not support full regular expressions or wildcards - an OID token of the form oid.*.subids is not valid.
If the OID field is the token default then the program will be invoked for any notification not matching another (OID specific) traphandle entry.
Details of the notification are fed to the program via its standard input. Note that this will always use the SNMPv2-style notification format, with SNMPv1 traps being converted as per RFC 2576, before being passed to the program. The input format is, if you use the default set by the "format execute %B\n%b\n%V\n%v\n", one entry per line:
- HOSTNAME
-
The name of the host in question that sent the trap, as determined by the
gethostbyaddr() function. - ADDRESS
-
The transport address, like "[UDP: [172.16.10.12]:23456->[10.150.0.8]]"
- VARBINDS
-
A list of variable bindings describing the contents of the notification, one per line. The first token on each line (up until a space) is the OID of the varind, and the remainder of the line is its value. The format of both of these are controlled by the outputOption directive (or similar configuration).
The first OID should always be SNMPv2-MIB::sysUpTime.0, and the second should be SNMPv2-MIB::snmpTrapOID.0. The remaining lines will contain the payload varbind list. For SNMPv1 traps, the final OID will be SNMPv2-MIB::snmpTrapEnterprise.0.
- Example
-
A traptoemail script has been included in the Net-SNMP package that can be used within a traphandle directive:
traphandle default ROOTDIR/mksnt/perl.exe ROOTDIR/bin/traptoemail -s mysmtp.somewhere.com -f admin@somewhere.com me@somewhere.com
- forward OID|default DESTINATION
-
forwards notifications that match the specified OID to another receiver listening on DESTINATION. The interpretation of OID (and default) is the same as for the traphandle directive).
See the section LISTENING ADDRESSES in the snmpd manual page for more information about the format of listening addresses.
NOTES
The daemon blocks while executing the traphandle commands. (This should be fixed in the future with an appropriate signal catch and wait() combination).
All directives listed with a value of "yes" actually accept a range of boolean values. These will accept any of 1, yes or true to enable the corresponding behaviour, or any of 0, no or false to disable it. The default in each case is for the feature to be turned off, so these directives are typically only used to enable the appropriate behaviour.
PORTABILITY
All UNIX systems. Windows 10. Windows Server 2016. Windows Server 2019. Windows 11. Windows Server 2022. Windows Server 2025.
AVAILABILITY
PTC MKS Toolkit for System Administrators
PTC MKS Toolkit for Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Interoperability
PTC MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers 64-Bit Edition
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers
PTC MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers 64-Bit Edition
SEE ALSO
- Commands:
- snmptrapd
- Miscellaneous:
- snmp_config, snmp_variables
PTC MKS Toolkit 10.5 Documentation Build 40.