What is SNMP ping?

Question

I know what SNMP is, and I know what ping is. What does SNMP ping mean? SNMP can be used to find out if devices on the network are still alive. What does he use for this? I would not think that SNMP ping is the same as ICMP ping?

Answer 1

As you correctly suspected, SNMP ping is definitely not the same as ICMP ping. He tries to try to get some basic information through SNMP, for example, DNS name, system name, location, system type, system description, etc., And if successful, "ping" is also considered successful.

But this is not some standard like ICMP Ping (echo). There is no special “ping” command in SNMP - this is just the name of the tool used to check if SNMP is alive on any target device (by getting some common MIB values). Thus, as you would expect, the implementation also differs in that it is a useful tool, not a standard.

But this practically does not work in practice, since there is a set of mandatory SNMP records, so if the device does not respond to them, you can be sure that it does not start SNMP. For SNMP "ping" for SNMP to work, it MUST be enabled on the target device, of course ... which usually does not have a default value in most cases in general, so there is a big difference with ICMP Ping, which can be used almost everywhere.

I hope I answered your question.

Answer 2

Normally for SNMP ping, it is equivalent to an ICMP echo. For example, IBM claims that it emits one ICMP echo (for SNMPD on the receiving side) and returns minRTT. If the response expires, it sends another raw echo packet after 1 second, and another after 2 seconds. If there is no answer yet, -1 is returned.

Cisco also has a similar implementation (SNMP GET / SET / PING-MIB). This is definitely implementation specific.

A source

Answer 3

Ping was a “Packetized Internet Node Groper," originally a tool that implemented ICMP echo reply. "Ping" is now commonly used to convey the abstraction of checking whether a device is online, available, responding.

There are MIB options to ask the device to ping or trace a route that appears to be asking the ICMP device to a third party and indicates success / failure, but the colloquial use of "snmp ping" is to check responsiveness by asking a simple SNMP question about a static point data and get an answer.

Most devices offer some response to requests in the subtree 1.3.6.1.2, but it is not difficult / fast. For example, on the Unix command line (-like), you can try "snmpget -v 1 -c public 192.168.0.1 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.1.0" to set "192.168.0.1" to his name. The device can answer; it will usually not be NAK if access (version 1, community string "public", in this case) is incorrect. A switch between them can be selected to warn the interrogator "inaccessible", but cannot. In this case, like others, if there is no answer, messages or tips other than a “response” may be useful.

Answer 4

"ping" is just a general term for sending a message to see if you will return a response.

ICMP is the most common method of pinging a host on an IP network. If you receive an ICMP echo reply from an IP address, then you know that there is something there and you are ready to receive and respond to at least some network traffic for this address. Receiving a response to the ICMP pin does not say anything about the status of other network services. When you don’t get an answer, you don’t say anything: there are dozens of reasons why you cannot receive an answer to the ICMP pin at any time.

The concept of "ping" applies to any communication mechanism. Some network protocols have specific ping standards. For most, "pinging" simply means trying to do some basic operation to see if it works. For example, you can ping an HTTP server by simply connecting to port 80 and doing " HEAD / HTTP/1.0 ." If you get an HTTP response, then you know that the HTTP server is working. The same idea applies to SNMP or any other network application.

Answer 5

In my understanding, SNMP ping is the one defined in RFC 2925

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2925

If the SNMP provider provider indicates that the device supports this RFC, you can use SNMP ping to monitor it. Otherwise it will not work.

This is completely different from "regular ping" (based on ICMP).

Answer 6

Like ICMP ping, SNMP ping, only the SNMP getrequest form, is used to check the availability of any equipment on which a standard SNMP agent for monitoring is installed. This is useful when control systems that control this equipment request automatic detection. Any sysOid can be used to request equipment as part of the request.