Monitoring Windows Server 2008 R2 with SNMP and Cacti

So you have a new Windows Server 2008 R2 installed and now you’d like to start gathering statistics about how it’s performing.  The SNMP protocol is a great way to get started.  In this tutorial I will install the SNMP agent service on a Windows server and configure it to allow queries from a SNMP based management server.  On the management server I will use a tool named Cacti that can collect this SNMP information and generate graphs from it in a fairly easy way.  I will assume that you have a server with Cacti already set up.  If not, details on how to set up an instance of Cacti on a CentOS Linux server can be found here.

Install and Configure Windows SNMP Agent

Okay first of all let’s install the Windows SNMP agent service.

Start Server Manager.

Scroll down to the Features Summary section and click Add Features.

Under Features open up SNMP Services and check SNMP Service.  Click Next.

Click Install at the confirmation screen, then click Close when the install is complete.

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Monitor Cisco Routers with Cacti and SNMP

Recently I had the desire to start monitoring the statistics of our internet router.  The main thing that I wanted to measure was the volume of traffic passing in from and out to the internet because the ISP limits the amount of data passing over the connection for each month.   With a tool such as Cacti we can collect these statistics via SNMP and graph them in a fairly simple way.  For details on how to set up an instance of Cacti on a CentOS Linux server go here.

Configure SNMP on Cisco Router

Go into global config mode:

cisco1# conf t

First we’ll set up read only access for a community string named “TestCommunity”.  The community string functions like a password and only allows access for management stations configured with the same string name.  Bear in mind that this value is passed over the network unsecured so do this only on private networks.

cisco1(config)# snmp-server community TestCommunity ro

For now Cacti will only need read access to get SNMP access stats.  Make a note of the community string because we’ll need to configure the Cacti server with this later.