• Prior to ESXi 5.0, ESXi did not include a firewall.
• Ensure that the SNMP protocol is open in the ESXi/ESX firewall. For more information, see:
   
  • ESX 4.x: Open an SSH session to the host and run the command esxcfg-firewall -e snmpd. See Working with firewall rules in ESX 4.x (1021779).
     
  • ESXi 5.0: By default, the SNMP firewall port 161 is open. If it is not, see ESXi Firewall Configuration in the ESXi and vCenter Server 5.0 Documentation.
     
• To implement these steps:
   
  • ESXi/ESX 3.5: Use the Remote CLI. For more information, see the Remote Command-Line Interface Documentation. You can download the VMware Infrastructure Remote CLI, available at VMware Downloads.
  • ESXi/ESX 4.x and ESXi 5.0: Run this procedure using the vSphere CLI, not the vSphere PowerCLI.
    
    For more information, see the vSphere Command-Line Interface Documentation.
    
    If you have a My VMware profile, you can download the vSphere CLI from:
    
    vSphere 4.x: From the My VMware page
    vSphere 5.0: From the My VMware page
    vSphere 5.1: From the My VMware page
    
    Note: If you do not have a My VMware profile, you must create one. For more information, see How to create a My VMware profile (2007005).

1. Navigate to the directory where vicfg-snmp.pl is stored. By default, vicfg-snmp.pl is located in:
   
   C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin
    
2. Run this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --show
   
   Note: Run the vicfg-snmp.pl --help command for a full list of options.
    
3. Specify the communities and trap targets with this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -t hostname@port -c community
   
   Note: In ESX 3.5, you may need to use vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password -t hostname@port/community.
   
   Example: To send SNMP traps from the host host.example.com to port 162 on target.example.com, using the public community, use this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server host.example.com --username root --password password -t target.example.com@162 -c public
   
   For ESXi 5.0:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server host.example.com --username root --password password -t target.example.com@162/community
   
   Note: To prevent clear text display of the user password, remove the --password password portion. You are then prompted to enter the password, and the entry is hidden.
    
4. To enable the SNMP service, run this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --enable
   
   Note: To verify SNMP settings, run this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --show
    
5. (Optional) To send a test trap to verify that the agent is configured correctly, run this command:
   
   vicfg-snmp.pl --server hostname --username username --password password --test
   
   The test trap generated is a warmStart trap.

• ESXi SNMP agent log entries for informs (2033466)
• SNMP inform configuration errors in syslog (2033526)
• SNMP trap information incorrectly displays in third-party monitoring software (1007483)
• VMware vSphere blog, Configuring SNMP v1/v2/v3 Using ESXCLI 5.1

Additional Information

• Español: Configuración de capturas SNMP para ESXi/ESX 3.5, 4.x y 5.0 (2055511)
• Português: Como configurar interceptações SNMP para ESXi/ESX 3.5, 4.x e 5.0 (2037211)
• 日本語: Como configurar interceptações SNMP para ESXi/ESX 3.5, 4.x e 5.0 (2037211)
• 简体中文: 为 ESXi/ESX 3.5、4.x 和 5.0 配置 SNMP 陷阱 (2075327)