Devices and SNMP profiles
Tracix monitors network devices over SNMP through a collector on your network. This page shows how to add devices, how Tracix decides what to poll on each one, and what you find on a device's page.
Before you begin
- A collector installed on a host that can reach your devices on UDP port 161. See Install the collector.
- SNMP enabled on the devices, with read-only credentials the collector can use: a v2c community, or an SNMPv3 user.
- Permission to manage integrations, which admins have by default, because devices are added through an integration on a collector policy.
One collector per policy polls
SNMP polling runs on one collector of each policy at a time. If that collector stops reporting, another collector of the same policy takes over. Every collector of the policy listens for traps. When collectors sit in networks that can't reach each other, give each network its own policy.
Add devices
Open the SNMP integration
In your workspace, open Network › Devices & Inventory and select Run discovery. The SNMP integration opens on its Configure step.
Choose what to scan
Under CIDRs, enter the ranges to sweep, such as
10.20.0.0/24. To add one known device, enter its address as a/32, such as10.20.0.5/32. Enter a Site, such asdc-east: it fills the site column on Devices & Inventory and groups devices on the topology map.Enter the SNMP credentials
Choose the SNMP version. For v2c, enter the Community (v2c). For v3, open Advanced and enter the User (v3) with its auth and privacy protocols and passwords; the security level follows the passwords you enter. SNMP polling and traps covers every field, including the trap listener.
Pick the policy
Under Where to add this integration, choose the policy whose collectors can reach the devices. Select Review, check the configuration, then select Connect. Every collector on the policy picks up the change with the next configuration push.
Confirm what discovery finds
Each discovered device waits in Network › Discovery Candidates until you confirm it. Turn on Auto-accept discovered devices in the integration to skip that step. See Discovery and topology.
Confirmed devices appear under Network › Devices & Inventory, with a strip at the top that counts them by type. The integration polls each device every 5 minutes by default (Collection interval) and sweeps the ranges again every 15 minutes (Rescan interval, an advanced field).
How Tracix picks a device profile
A device profile says which SNMP objects to poll on a kind of device and how to map them to metrics. Tracix ships 174 built-in device profiles, plus 21 building blocks, such as IF-MIB, LLDP-MIB and HOST-RESOURCES-MIB, that profiles extend.
During discovery the collector reads each device's sysObjectID, sysName and sysDescr. Tracix then picks the most specific profile, in this order:
- Exact match: a profile lists the device's
sysObjectID. - Longest prefix: the most specific wildcard the
sysObjectIDstarts with, so a model profile wins over a vendor-wide one. - sysDescr pattern: a profile's regular expression matches the device's
sysDescr. - No match: the device is flagged as needing a profile (see the next section).
Whatever matches, every device is polled for standard interface metrics (IF-MIB), system information (SNMPv2-MIB) and link aggregation membership. The Device profiles field on the integration is empty by default, which means automatic matching; select profiles there only to narrow a mixed environment.
The built-in profile definitions are derived from the Kentik SNMP profile library, licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
Devices no profile matches
When Generate profiles for unknown devices with Brain is on (the default), the collector walks one device of each unknown make and model once, and Brain writes a profile from that walk. Every device of the same kind then uses it. This needs an AI model connected to your workspace; see Model providers. Without one, the device keeps the standard interface and system metrics, plus any building blocks its walk shows it supports.
To start generation for candidates that are waiting, open Network › Discovery Candidates and select Parse with Brain. Follow progress under AI & Automation › Built-in agents › SNMP profile generator.
The device page
Select a device on Devices & Inventory to open its page. The layout follows the device's type:
| Device type | What the page shows |
|---|---|
| Routers and switches | Ports and optics, traffic, BGP, OSPF, routing table, ARP table, VLANs, MAC address table and link aggregation |
| Firewalls | Sessions and session rate, VPN tunnels, HA state, policies and virtual systems |
| Access points and wireless controllers | Clients, channel utilization, radios, SSIDs, access points and licenses |
| Load balancers | Virtual servers, pools and members, connections, requests and expiring certificates |
| Servers and storage | Load, file systems, disks, volumes, IOPS, latency and replication |
| UPS units and PDUs | Battery, runtime, load, voltage, phases and outlets |
| Environment sensors | Temperature, humidity, dew point, contacts and alarms |
| Printers | Status, supplies, trays, covers and pages |
| Anything else, such as DNS and IPAM appliances | Interfaces, traffic, uptime and hardware |
Every page also has Traps, Details and Alerts tabs. A value the device doesn't report shows as -, never as 0. A device Tracix hasn't heard from in 30 minutes is marked stale on the inventory and on the topology map.
Correct a device's type
Tracix infers each device's type from its profile, its hardware identity and its telemetry. When it gets one wrong, open the device page, choose the right value under Device type and select Pin type. The pin sets the inventory type, the page layout and the device's role on the topology map. Choose Automatic and select Clear pin to let Tracix decide again. Pinning needs write access to network devices.
Alert on device problems
Tracix ships ready-made monitors for network devices, such as interfaces going down, interface errors and discards, CPU, memory, power supplies, fans and temperature, and traps such as link down or a BGP peer going down. See Monitors to turn them on and route their alerts.