Network Interfaces Test

How often should the test be executed

The host for which the test is to be configured.

The port at which the monitored target exposes its SNMP MIB; the default is 161.

By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the snmpversion list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list.

The SNMP community name that the test uses to communicate with the firewall. This parameter is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVersion chosen is v3, then this parameter will not appear.

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the snmpversion. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges – in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against the Username parameter. 

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the username provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the username in the context text box.  By default, this parameter is set to none.

Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned Username. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPversion selected is v3.

Confirm the Authpass by retyping it here.

This parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. From the AuthType list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified username and password into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options:

• MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm
• SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm
• SHA224 - Secure Hash Algorithm 224 bit
• SHA256 - Secure Hash Algorithm 256 bit
• SHA384 - Secure Hash Algorithm 384 bit
• SHA512 - Secure Hash Algorithm 512 bit

This flag appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the this flag is set to no by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the yes option. 

If the EncryptFlag is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the EncryptType list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types:

• DES - Data Encryption Standard
• 3DES - Triple Data Encryption Standard
• AES - Advanced Encryption Standard
• AES128 - Advanced Encryption Standard 128 bit
• AES192 - Advanced Encryption Standard 192 bit
• AES256 - Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit

Specify the encryption password here.

Confirm the encryption password by retyping it here.

Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds.

By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic – for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components – to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set this flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.

This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. Sometimes, the test may not report metrics when AES192 or AES256 is chosen as the Encryption type. To ensure that the test report metrics consistently, administrators need to set this flag to Yes. By default, this parameter is set to No.

If this flag is set to Yes, then only the network interfaces that are operational - i.e. whose MIB-II operStatus variable has a value "up" - are monitored. If this flag is set to No, all network interfaces that have an adminStatus of "up" will be monitored. By default, this flag is set to No, indicating that by default the test will monitor network interfaces that are up/down.

If this value is Yes, then it indicates that all interfaces are full duplex. In this case, the eG Enterprise system will compute bandwidth usage % to be, max(input bandwidth, output bandwidth)*100/total speed. On the other hand, if this flag is set to No, then the computation of bandwidth usage % will be (input bandwidth + output bandwidth)*100/total speed.

The Exclude text box takes a comma separated list of network interfaces that are to be excluded when performing the test. For example, if this parameter has a value of "Null0", then the Null0 interface of the network device will not be monitored by the eG agent. This specification can also include wild card characters. For instance, to disregard all interfaces which contain the string ether and null when monitoring, your Exclude specification should be: *ether*,*null*.

This flag controls how the test discovers network interfaces. If this flag is No, the operational state of an interface is not considered when discovering all the network interfaces of a router/switch/network device. If this flag is Yes(which is the default setting), only interfaces that have been in the up operational state will be considered for monitoring. In this mode, if an interface is down all of the time, it will not be considered for monitoring. However, once the interface starts to function, it will be tracked by the test and alerts generated if the interface state ever changes to down.

Cisco and many network devices allow administrators to set the names for switch/router ports. These names can be set to logical, easily understandable values. Port names can be set in Cisco devices using the command "set port name". For example set port name 3/24 Federal_credit_union_link. This command indicates that the port 3/24 is used to support the Federal Credit Union. If the Usealias parameter is set to Yes, then a Show Alias AND Interface Name parameter will additionally appear, which is set to No by default. In this case, the agent will first try to look at the port name (from the if Alias SNMP OID) and use the port name if specified as the descriptor for the test results. If a port name is unavailable or if no port name/alias is specified in the network device setting, the interface description for each port provided in the SNMP MIB-II output is used instead as the descriptor for the test results. On the other hand, if the Usealias parameter is set to Yes and the Show Alias and Interface Name parameter is set to Yes, then each descriptor of this test will be represented in the format port name:interface description.For e.g., 1:local_lan_segment:GigabitEthernet 0/0. If the Usalias parameter is set to No, then the Show Alias and Interface Name parameter option will not appear. In this case therefore, the device name will be displayed as the descriptor of the test.

DEFAULT VALUE IS YES Interfaces Group MIB (RFC 2233) - NEW for metrics collection

By default, this test polls the standard IF MIB (RFC 1213) - OLD to collect the required metrics. Set the UseExtension flag to Yes, if you want the test to poll the Interfaces Group MIB (RFC 2233) - NEW for metrics collection. By default this parameter is set to No.

By default, this flag is set to No, indicating that the eG agent polls the standard IF MIB to collect the performance metrics. If you want the eG agent to poll the IF-EXTENSION-MIB to collect the required metrics, set this flag to Yes.

By default, none is displayed against this parameter. This indicates that the actual speed of each network interface of the target network device obtained as bits per second from the SNMP MIB II is automatically converted to Mbps and displayed against the Speed measure in the eG monitor interface. In some environments, network administrators may have explicitly set the speed of the target network device to Kbps or Mbps against the default speed of bits per second. In such cases, specify a suitable value against this parameter. If the speed of the network interface is set to kbps, then specify 1000 against this parameter. Alternately, if the speed of the network interface is set to Mbps, then set 1000000 against this parameter.

By default, this parameter is set to No indicating that the test will report all the metrics related to each network interface in the target environment. If this flag is set to Yes, then packet related metrics (for e.g., Non-unicast packets received, Transmit errors, Outbound protocols etc) will not be collected. It is recommended to set this flag to Yes in environments where database space is a constraint to collect all the metrics for a large number of network interfaces.