Enable SNMP Management Stations and Traps for a Locally-Managed Firebox

An SNMP trap is an event notification your Firebox sends to an SNMP management station. The trap identifies when a specific condition occurs, such as a value that is more than its predefined threshold. Your device can send a trap for any policy.

An SNMP inform request is similar to a trap, but the receiver sends a response. If your device does not get a response, it sends the inform request again until the SNMP manager sends a response. A trap is sent only once, and the receiver does not send any acknowledgment when it gets the trap.

An inform request is more reliable than a trap because your Firebox knows whether the inform request was received. However, inform requests consume more resources. They are held in memory until the sender gets a response. If an inform request must be sent more than once, the retries increase traffic. Because each sent receipt increases the amount of memory in use on the router and the amount of network traffic, we recommend that you consider whether it is necessary to send a receipt for every SNMP notification.

To enable SNMP inform requests, you must use SNMPv2 or SNMPv3. SNMPv1 supports only traps, not inform requests.

Configure SNMP Management Stations

Add an SNMP Policy

To enable your Firebox to receive SNMP polls, you must also add an SNMP policy. 

Send an SNMP Trap for a Policy

Your Firebox can send an SNMP trap when traffic is filtered by a policy. You must have at least one SNMP management station configured to enable SNMP traps.

Related Topics

About SNMP

About Management Information Bases (MIBs)

About SNMP Traps for Alarms

Enable SNMP Polling for a Locally-Managed Firebox

Configure SNMP Settings for a Cloud-Managed Firebox