Activate SNMP on VMWare ESXi host

Purpose: This document will outline the steps required to turn on SNMP within a VMWare ESXi host when it is being managed from an Vcenter Server system. This will allow an ESXi hosts to respond to SNMP queries from an SNMP management system.

Source and target system versions (may also work with other ESXi versions):

vCenter Server v5.5

ESXi v5.x

Step 1.) Open command prompt on vCenter Server system and change to the following directory:

C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI or equivalent path to the VMware vSphere CLI directory (depends where program was installed).

Step 2.) Setup community string using following syntax format:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -c com1

e.g.- vicfg-snmp.pl --server server123 --username ChooseMe --password ChangeMe -c YourUniqueString

Step 3.) Set up for polling using following syntax format:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -p port

e.g.- vicfg-snmp.pl --server server123 --username ChooseMe --password ChangeMe -p 161

Step 4.) Enable SNMP on the host using following syntax format:

vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --enable

e.g.- vicfg-snmp.pl --server server123 --username ChooseMe --password ChangeMe –enable

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Slack Consulting 05.2014