Chapter 1: Introduction 9

SNMP

The administrator can activate the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agent that resides on the console server so that the SNMP agent sends notifications about significant events or traps to an SNMP management application. The console server SNMP agent supports SNMP v1/v2 and v3.

For more information, see To configure SNMP: on page 78

Notifications, Alarms and Data Buffering

The administrator can set up logging, notifications and alarms to alert administrators of problems. System generated messages on the console server and the connected servers or devices can be sent to syslog servers for handling. The administrator can also configure data buffering to store data from communication on serial ports for monitoring.

Data from communication with serial-connected consoles can be stored locally in the console server’s flash memory or remotely either on an NFS server or a syslog server.

Syslog servers

Messages about the console server and connected servers or devices can be sent to central logging servers, called syslog servers. Console data from devices connected to serial ports can be stored in data buffer files on syslog servers. By default, logging and data buffering are not enabled.

Prerequisites for logging to syslog servers

Before configuring syslogging, ensure the syslog server is pre-configured with a public IP address and is accessible from the console server. The system administrator must obtain both the IP address of the syslog server from the syslog server’s administrator and the facility number for messages from the console server. Facility numbers are used on the syslog server for handling messages generated by multiple devices.

Facility numbers for syslog messages

Each syslog server has seven local facility numbers available for its administrator to assign to different devices or groups of devices, at different locations. The available facility numbers are local0 through local7.

Example of using facility numbers

The syslog system administrator sets up a server called syslogger to handle log messages from two console servers. One console server is located in São Paulo, Brazil and the other in Fremont, California. The syslog server’s administrator wishes to aggregate messages from the

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Avocent ACS 5000 Notifications, Alarms and Data Buffering, Syslog servers, Prerequisites for logging to syslog servers