Creating Probes

The device probes are central to device data collection. Individual probes can be assigned to multiple device types. A good example of this is the Basic Identity probe, which pulls from standard MIBs. This can be the most time-consuming process, and one that we are refining and improving to become the best and easiest process to set up detailed SNMP monitoring for your devices. 

Navigating to the Probe Creation Page and Creating a Probe

1. Select "Administration"

2. Select "Devices"

2. Select the "Device Probes" sub-menu.

3. Once in the probes section of the application, select the "Add Probe" button. This will take you to the probe creation screen.

4. Enter a name for the probe in the "Name" field.

5. Set the frequency in which the probe reaches out to a device (in seconds). For this example, the interval was set at 300 seconds (5 minutes).

6. Enter a brief description for the probe into the "Description" field.

7. Click "Save" and you are now ready to start adding SNMP variables and assigning your probe to device types.

Adding a Probe to a Device Type

Adding a probe to device types is fairly straightforward. Probes can be assigned to multiple device types. So, as you build your probes, consider how some probes can be used across multiple device types, which will help you in building useful and dynamic probes that will reduce the need to replicate similar polling in individual device types.

1. Select "Associated Device Types" from the probe's navigation menu on the right.

2. Continue to link the probe to all the device types using the “Link” buttons on the right side of the device type list. You can link/unlink device types at any point from your probe(s).

Adding SNMP Variables (OIDs) to a Probe

Now that we have created a new probe and associated it with device types, we can now progress to identifying and inputting  SNMP variables (OIDs) into the probe to begin collecting data from the target network devices.

The Basics of Adding an SNMP Variable to a Probe

1. Select "SNMP Variables" from the probe's right menu. You will be taken to a screen where you can add SNMP variables to the probe. The interface is fairly simple, with a space for a table to display the probe's SNMP variables, and fields below to add in new variables.

2. Below the fields is a menu system labeled "Available Mibs." You can navigate through the standard MIBs and enterprise MIBs at are loaded with your instance of the application. In the future the interface will allow for direct uploads of manufacturer/enterprise specific MIBs. If you have MIBs that you need loaded into the system, you can contact us at support@komodosystems.com and we can aid you in getting those ingested into your application.

3. As you browse the MIB directory, as you select OIDs, they will automatically populate the "SNMP Variable Name" and "OID" fields. Optionally, you can also directly input SNMP Variable Names and OIDs, without using the provided MIB directory.

4. Below the two fields is a dropdown menu called "Request Type." This dictates how the application interacts with the device OIDs. Your options are "Get", "Get Next", and "Walk Column as CSV." Below is a table explaining the function of each command, so as you select your variables, you can decide how the application queries the MIBs.

5. After you have configured your SNMP variable, click the "Save" button.

6. The SNMP variable that you created will now be added to the table above. You can continue this process until you have selected all of your SNMP variables for the probe.

Using AI to Identify SNMP Variables for a Probe

While the Komodo Eye makes it easy to add common and manufacturer/enterprise MIBs that have been uploaded to the application, there are other approaches to building your device type probes. Harvesting SNMP Variables from existing monitoring templates, and using AI to augment traditional SNMP walk and analysis approaches can yield fast and accurate results. This section will focus on the workflow, prompts, and desired output from a LLM, like Gemini or ChatGPT. 

One of the major strengths that AI brings to this process is that they have ingested most of the available information on SNMP MIBs and OIDs, allowing them to sort through walk data, identify responding OIDs, and provide clear definitions and recommendations. This potentially can yield more sophisticated monitoring, without the tedium and trial- and-error of sorting through SNMP data to find useful OIDs to monitor. This AI functionality is slated to be integrated directly into the Komodo Eye application, making it even easier to create sophisticated probes to monitor your network devices.

1. Perform an SNMP walk. The most common tool is the snmpwalk utility (part of the Net-SNMP suite). You can run this from a Linux terminal or Windows CMD (if Net-SNMP is installed). There are abundant resources available online that will guide you through the process. As a suggestion, before you begin the walks, it would be helpful to have a list of IP addresses for all of the target devices that you are aiming to build probes for.

2. Optional: Remove sensitive information from the walk, if it is a data security concern. You can also opt to use a paid, professional-tiered plan with an LLM. They often have security guarantees and don’t use the data to train their algorithms.

3. Open up your chosen LLM (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) and decode the walk. This is where AI can dramatically speed up the probe creation process, while delivering highly tailored monitoring for your network devices. Below are a series of prompts that you can use, in conjunction with each walk, to be able to quickly build a list of potential SNMP variables to add to your device type probe.

4. Take the SNMP variables that you selected and input them into your probes. You need to make sure that you have the SNMP Variable Name, OID, and Request Type as an output from the LLM to make the process fast and easy.

AI Prompt to Generate Probe Data for the Komodo Eye

This prompt was refined and created by running SNMP Walk data through Google Gemini. You can paste the following prompt into an LLM of your choice, and attach your SNMP Walk data as a .txt file. The way that the prompt is structured, it should give you consistent results every time that you run it:

Role: Act as a Senior Network Management Systems (NMS) Engineer and SNMP Specialist.

Task: Analyze the attached SNMP walk file to create a "Device Type Probe" (Monitoring Template).

Instructions:

1. Filter: Remove all OIDs that did not respond with a value (e.g., those returning "No Such Instance," "No Such Object," or null values).

2. Identify: Determine the device vendor and model based on the sysDescr or Enterprise OIDs.

3. Select: Recommend a set of OIDs for a comprehensive monitoring template. Include:

• Standard MIBs: System identity (uptime, name), interface statistics (traffic, errors, status), and host resources (CPU/Memory if available).

• Enterprise MIBs: Vendor-specific sensors (Temperature, Power Supplies, Fans, Signal Levels, or specialized hardware metrics).

4. Format: Present the recommendations in a Markdown table with the following columns:

• OID Name: (e.g., ifAdminStatus)

• Actual OID: (e.g., 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.7)

• Returned Value: The specific value from the uploaded walk.

• English Definition: A clear, non-technical explanation of what this OID measures.

• Request Type: Recommend one of: Get, Get Next, or Walk Column as CSV.

• Rationale & Utility: Why this is important to monitor and what kind of alert it should trigger.

• Expressions/Scaling: Specify if the value needs math (e.g., Value / 10 for decimals, or (Delta * 8) / PollInterval for bps).

5. Summary: List the common Standard MIBs used (e.g., IF-MIB, RFC1213) and the name of the proprietary MIB used for the enterprise OIDs.

This prompt will also aid you in being able to use probe expressions (not covered in this guide), and give you ideas as to how to set up the Komodo Eye® to create alerting and notifications. Stay tuned as we continue to develop our workflows and integrate useful AI functions, such as this, into our application.