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Jonathan Stout edited this page Aug 21, 2019 · 21 revisions

An SNMP poller called SIMP is included with VCE for collecting network statistics. To configure SIMP, use the information on this page and the helper configuration files that are located in /etc/vce/simp.

This guide assumes you will be running a dedicated SIMP instance which is only used by VCE. For more complex configurations please see the SIMP repository and its associated documentation.

Configuration v1.2.6 and after

There are three components to SIMP. The first is simp-poller; This collects data via SNMP directly from your network devices and stores it in an in-memory database. The second is simp-data; This provides a web based api into the in-memory database. The third is simp-comp; This transforms data into more useful forms and provides it to the user.

simp-poller

  1. The OIDs collected by simp-poller are defined in groups which are configured in /etc/simp/poller/groups.d/. While the default SIMP configuration will likely yield you some data, VCE requires a number of OIDs to be collected for its graphs to be properly generated.

    Copy /etc/vce/simp/poller/groups.d/intf.xml to /etc/simp/poller/groups.d/intf.xml.

  2. Once these OID groups have been configured, you must associate these with your VCE hosts. To do this you would normally create a configuration file in /etc/simp/poller/hosts.d/. Luckily VCE provides a script to auto-generate this for you.

    Edit /etc/cron.d/vce_switch_cron and uncomment the vce-simp-generator line. Be sure to provide the SNMP community string that your network devices use. Note: At this time SNMPv2 is only supported.

    0 * * * * /usr/bin/vce-simp-generator --community public

simp-data

This component is actually very simple and requires no special configuration.

  1. As stated above, the data collected by simp-poller via SNMP is stored in an in-memory database. The configuration for it is done in simp-data module.
  2. In order to access data collected by simp-poller in the in-memory database, simp-data uses rabbitmq to issue data requests over HTTP.

Due to the modularity of simp architecture, RabbitMQ/database running on localhost or some other host can be integrated with the simp stack. This integration is done using the configuration file /etc/simp/data/config.xml.

This default configuration assumes that RabbitMQ/database is running on the same host as simp-data with their default configurations so this will only need updated if RabbitMQ and simp-data hosts are separate or using more advanced configurations.

simp-comp

  1. The data provided by simp-data is purely technical with OIDs and is not very human-friendly to read. This component takes data and transforms it into a friendly format.

    Copy /etc/vce/simp/comp/composites.d/interface.xml to /etc/simp/comp/composites.d/interface.xml.

simp-tsds

  1. The hosts from which the data has to be collected, needs to be linked with the SIMP Composite defined above and its associated TSDS Measurement Type. This configuration is stored in /etc/simp/tsds/collections.d/.

    Again VCE provides a script to auto-generate this for you; It's the same cron script as above. If you haven't already, edit /etc/cron.d/vce.cron and uncomment the vce-simp-generator line. Be sure to provide the SNMP community string that your network devices use.

  2. Copy /etc/vce/simp/tsds/config.xml to /etc/simp/tsds/config.xml and change the user and password the web credentials of the VCE admin user.

Configuration before v1.2.6

There are three components to SIMP. The first is simp-poller; This collects data via SNMP directly from your network devices and stores it in an in-memory database. The second is simp-data; This provides a web based api into the in-memory database. The third is simp-comp; This transforms data into more useful forms and provides it to the user.

simp-poller

  1. The OIDs collected by simp-poller are defined in /etc/simp/config.xml. While the default SIMP configuration will likely yield you some data, VCE requires a number of OIDs to be collected for its graphs to be properly generated. Copy /etc/vce/simp/config.xml to /etc/simp/config.xml to configure the correct OIDs.

  2. Once the OIDs for VCE have been configured you must associate these with your VCE hosts. To do this you would normally create a configuration file in /etc/simp/hosts.d/. Luckily VCE provides a script to auto-generate these for you. To enable auto-generation open /etc/cron.d/vce_switch_cron and uncomment the vce-simp-generator line. Be sure to provide the SNMP community string that your network devices use.
    Note: At this time SNMPv2 is only supported.

    0 * * * * /usr/bin/vce-simp-generator --community public

simp-data

This component is actually very simple and requires no special configuration.

  1. As stated above, the data collected by simp-poller via SNMP is stored in an in-memory database. The configuration for it is done in simp-data module.
  2. In order to access data collected by simp-poller in the in-memory database, simp-data uses rabbitmq to issue data requests over HTTP.

Due to the modularity of simp architecture, RabbitMQ/database running on localhost or some other host can be integrated with the simp stack. This integration is done using the configuration file simpConfigData.xml. Copy /etc/vce/simp/simpDataConfig.xml to /etc/simp/simpDataConfig.xml.

Assuming that RabbitMQ/database is running on the same host as simp-data, this file contains the default configuration but it will need to be updated if RabbitMQ and simp-data hosts are separate.

simp-comp

The data provided by simp-data is purely technical with OIDs and is not very human-friendly to read. This component takes data and transforms it into a friendly format. There are different types of transformation that could be performed. This is configured in compDataConfig.xml. Copy /etc/vce/simp/simpCompConfig.xml to /etc/simp/simpCompConfig.xml.

This file also contains RabbitMQ and database configuration to make it an independent component in the simp stack.

switch configuration

The switch from which the data has to be collected, needs to be configured with the composite name and tsds type. For this, please copy /etc/vce/simp/tsds.d to /etc/simp. Once you copy this file, edit /etc/simp/tsds.d/static.xml with the appropriate switch name.

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