My first job out of college was at the GTE equivalent of Western Electric,
designing factory test equipment. I remember they had a way of teaching newbies
to never rely on the absence of an indication (no news is good news).There was
a box in the lab labelled "fuse tester", with a fuse holder, a button, and a
light labelled "fuse blown". So someone would put a good fuse in the holder,
and nothing would happen. Nobody was satisfied with that, so even the
pushbutton was not labelled, they would push it. And of course then the "fuse
blown" light would come on.---- Original Message ----From:
dmmoffett@gmail.comSent: 5/9/2024 1:44:17 PMTo: "'AnimalFarm Microwave Users
Group'" Subject: Re: [AFMUG] SNMPAs far as something newer/better than SNMP,
there is Netconf (RFC6241).? In a nutshell, it uses HTTP to carry XML data with
the queries and commands.? It?s ?push? rather than ?pull?, so you put the NMS
URL in the device rather than adding every device to the NMS.? In theory, if
your NMS server blows up you can stand up a new one on the same IP address and
all the devices start talking to it like nothing happened. ?And (hopefully)
your devices can get the NMS URL via a DHCP option or RADIUS attribute or
whatever so you don?t actually have to enter it on every device.? It?s also
supposed to be lighter on the network and lighter on the devices because they
don?t have to provide every value in every polling interval; they can just
update the NMS with whatever changed from the previous interval.?So there are a
lot of positive aspects to the new way, but the problem is SNMP has been around
for over 3 decades and you have a huge installed base of software and hardware
using it. ?I believe Nokia (Altiplano) uses Netconf, and I know the Telrad LTE
stuff did as well?..and in both cases they chose NOT to implement SNMP on the
device at all.? Nokia, I believe, provides some kind middleware so you can have
a machine taking SNMP queries and translating it to talk to the NetConf
server.? I?m fuzzy on that piece because I?ve only seen Powerpoint about it.?
Telrad just said screw SNMP.? My point being that the two Netconf
implementations I know about both opted for Netconf only, rather than keeping
SNMP for backward compatibility.???Email alerts sounds like the easy way up
until it doesn?t work.? It seems like these days you always run into anti-spam
features.? I?d suggest if you do that you have the device send from an email
address on the same domain and same host as your company email and ask the
provider to (1) exempt that sender from spam and virus scanning, (2) dev/null
any incoming mail for that address, and (3) set the password to never expire.?
Optionally (4) have them only accept mail from that sender if it comes from
your IP addresses. ??If it accepts incoming mail you?ll eventually end up with
infinite gigs of backscatter.? Also, fully expect your IT people to delete that
account sometimes.? This may sound stupid, but it happens. Some well meaning
new guy will review email accounts and find this one account that nobody has
ever logged into and delete it assuming it?s a dead account.? Oh?.write down
the password somewhere because you?ll need to set in every device and you?ll
need to be able to put it back in when the new IT guy deletes it.? If you ever
have to reset it then obviously you have to touch every device to update
them.?If they?ll let you send without auth that avoids any password related
hardships, but then item (4) in my list is no longer optional.? ?You?ll have to
cope with all the same issues when your NMS sends email, but you cope with it
on one server instead of 1000 devices.?My final comment about email alerts is
you don?t know when they stop working.? If the NMS can?t poll the device with
SNMP you?ll get an alert about that, but if the device can?t send an email that
looks the same as if there just aren?t any problems right now.? You?ll find out
when something bad happens and you realize you didn?t get the alert.?So
yeah?..SNMP is what I?d do.? Maybe Netconf someday when there?s wider support
for it.?For reading dry contacts with SNMP I certainly like Packetflux, and we
bought lots of SiteMonitors in our WISP days.? There?s also controlbyweb.com,
sometimes they typically cost more than a SiteMonitor, but sometimes they?ll
have one box that gives you the right mix of contacts whereas you needed a
Sitemonitor + Expansion to get the same thing with Packetflux.? ??-Adam???From:
AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Chuck McCown via AFSent: Wednesday,
May 08, 2024 5:42 PMTo: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com>Cc:
chuck@go-mtc.comSubject: Re: [AFMUG] SNMP?I think the simple email alert is
what we are looking for..? No NMS needed.? ???From: castarritt Sent: Wednesday,
May 8, 2024 3:33 PMTo: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG]
SNMP?We've done stuff as ghetto as powering an old wrt54g through the alarm
contacts and monitoring its IP address to see when it comes up and goes down.?
These days all of our sites have either an Alpha or ICT UPS or DC shelf that
has alarm monitoring inputs.?On Wed, May 8, 2024 at 4:30?PM Ken Hohhof
<khoh...@kwom.com> wrote:As long as you support SMTP AUTH, I think that should
be sufficient.? If necessary, someone could always create a Gmail account for
this purpose.?Yes, there are some older devices that expect you to set them up
as an MTA rather than MUA so they can send unauthenticated SMTP on port 25.?
That sounds like a really bad plan to me unless you time travel back to maybe
1999.? I don?t want to be creating SPF and DKIM and DMARC records for a little
contact monitoring box, and it sounds like a security nightmare.?From: AF
<af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Forrest Christian (List Account)Sent:
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 4:13 PMTo: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group
<af@af.afmug.com>Subject: Re: [AFMUG] SNMP?Some devices can be configured to
send an email if a contact closes, but the way this happens varies between
devices.?My problem with integrating this on the the sitemonitor platform has
traditionally been that you need a rule system in order to determine when to
send the email.? I.E. what threshold of voltage, and so on.?? This is obviously
easy in a on/off situation, but not so much in a voltage.?? Plus you need
additional rules so when the voltage is bouncing between 24.0 and 24.1 and you
have the threshold set at 24.0 you don't get an email every time it flaps to
24.0.??? All of this was impossible to do on the older hardware just because of
code space limitations.? ?The Base 3 has the resources to do this, but the
firmware has not yet been completed.? There is a rules engine about 3/4 built
for the sitemonitor system, how long until it sees the light of day, I don't
know at this point.?? The email itself is somewhat easy but I also need to
provide some sort of email server resources for those who don't have an email
system which will accept email from random devices.?On Wed, May 8, 2024 at
2:55?PM Ken Hohhof <khoh...@kwom.com> wrote:Not following how you are going to
use SNMP without a monitoring system.Packetflux Sitemonitor can turn a contact
closure into a 1 or 0 OID that an SNMP monitoring system can check at regular
intervals, mine mostly polls every 1 minute. But then you would typically have
your NMS send an alert by email or text message.I tend to monitor analog
parameters like voltage or current, then set trip points for the NMS to send an
informative message. Like UPS input voltage at the Podunk site has been below
the minimum value of 100 V for more than 2 minutes.---- Original Message
----From: "Chuck McCown via AF" Sent: 5/8/2024 2:41:36 PMTo: "TJ Trout" ,
"AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" Cc: chuck@go-mtc.comSubject: Re: [AFMUG]
SNMPSo how do Forrest?s products let you know of an issue?? Traps??\Would love
to NOT have to have NMS just for this.? ??From: TJ Trout Sent: Wednesday, May
8, 2024 1:35 PMTo: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Cc: Chuck McCown Subject:
Re: [AFMUG] SNMP?Packet flux can do it all too, the base unit can monitor two
voltages and temp and a few contact closures, if you need more volt inputs or
closures you add a expansion unit. No email that I'm aware of?On Wed, May 8,
2024, 12:23?PM Chuck McCown via AF <af@af.afmug.com> wrote:No, we have fuse
alarms, rectifier, inverter, and other comm equipment alarm contacts.? Circuit
breaker alarms.? That is why historically I liked the netguardian product.? It
eats everything.? Monitors DC voltages etc.? Temps???From: Bill Prince Sent:
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 1:13 PMTo: af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] SNMP?I
think if your installed equipment all came from one vendor, there might be some
way to do their proprietary monitoring solution.However, SNMP as flawed as it
might be, is the only standard that is nearly universal (because some
implementations are better than others).?bp<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>On
5/8/2024 11:30 AM, Chuck McCown via AF wrote:We are needing to add some
monitoring of old fashioned alarm contacts in one of our sites.? In the past I
used Netguardians.? Not sure what Forrest has.? ?Is SNMP still the defacto NMS
comm method or are there better more modern stuff out there we should be
looking at???Best Regards,Chuck McCownMcCown Technology Corporation 8401 N
Commerce DrLake Point, Utah 84074801-250-9503 Office435-830-4306
Cellwww.mccowntech.comwww.microtrench.prowww.terabitnetworks.com?-- AF mailing
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