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This file contains instructions on how to use the snmptrapd in NAV and how to add traphandlers to it.

The snmptrapd is a program written in python designed to receive traps sent to NAV and process them by sending them to traphandlers. Traphandlers are independent and may be written by whoever wants to. snmptrapd is based on the pysnmp-library and the example on Python@SourceForge

The snmptrapd is located in the $NAV/bin directory and is started and stopped like any other nav-process - by the use of nav start/stop commands. The snmptrapd may be run on the commandline aswell if no other trapdaemon is running. It then logs everything to STDOUT. If you want to daemonize it, use the -d option.

When run, snmptrapd first binds to the port it will receive traps on (default 162) as root, and then switches user to the one specified in the config-file (default navcron). This is done as a safety measure.

For logging the python-module 'logging' is used. It accepts the usual loglevels (DEBUG, INFO). See Logging-module for more information. Loglevels may be set in the snmptrapd config-file.

The snmptrapd, when daemonized, logs to two files: snmptrapd.log and snmptraps.log. snmptrapd.log contains normal process logging and snmptraps.log contains all traps received by the daemon. Logrotation should be used on these files.

The config-file is called snmptrapd.conf and is located in $NAV/etc. It is read using the ConfigParser module (see ConfigParser-module for more information). This means that options may be set using variable=value. #-lines are comments.

The file is divided into sections. There is one general section, the rest is config for the traphandlers. The most interesting parameters are loglevel and handlermodules. The first one sets the loglevel for the rootlogger and the last one defines which traphandlers are used to handle the incoming traps.

When the snmptrapd receives a trap it puts all the information in a trap-object and sends the object to every traphandler stated in the traphandlers option in snmptrapd.conf. It is then up to the traphandler to decide if it wants to process the trap or just discard it.

Step by step it goes like this: - Receive trap

• Make trap-object
• Import traphandlers stated in snmptrapd.conf
• Run function handleTrap(trap, config) in the traphandlers
• Get resultstatus from traphandler

The traphandlers may be imported from any directory available from the python-path. The total pythonpath must be specified in snmptrapd.conf. Also they must contain the function handleTrap which takes a trap-object and a config-object as input.

Every traphandler may be configured by defining a section for the traphandler in snmptrapd.conf and putting parameters there.

Everyone can write and use their own traphandler for the snmptrapd. There is a handlertemplate (handlertemplate.py) that may be used when creating your own traphandler. It contains some comments and show you the basics to get you started.

NB: For a traphandler to take effect, snmptrapd must be restarted. Use “sudo ./nav restart snmptrapd”.

– JohnMagneBredal