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Health Monitoring with SNMP

Health Monitoring Overview

Health monitoring is an SNMP feature that extends the RMON alarm infrastructure to provide monitoring for a predefined set of objects (such as file system usage, CPU usage, and memory usage), and for Junos OS processes.

You enable the health monitor feature using the health-monitor statement at the [edit snmp] hierarchy level. You can also configure health monitor parameters such as a falling threshold, rising threshold, and interval. If the value of a monitored object exceeds the rising or falling threshold, an alarm is triggered and an event may be logged.

The falling threshold is the lower threshold for the monitored object instance. The rising threshold is the upper threshold for the monitored object instance. Each threshold is expressed as a percentage of the maximum possible value. The interval represents the period of time, in seconds, over which the object instance is sampled and compared with the rising and falling thresholds.

Events are only generated when a threshold is first crossed in any one direction, rather than after each sample interval. For example, if a rising threshold alarm, along with its corresponding event, is raised, no more threshold crossing events occur until a corresponding falling alarm occurs.

System log entries for health monitor events have a corresponding HEALTHMONITOR tag and not a generic SNMPD_RMON_EVENTLOG tag. However, the health monitor sends generic RMON risingThreshold and fallingThreshold traps. You can use the show snmp health-monitor operational command to view information about health monitor alarms and logs.

When you configure the health monitor, monitoring information for certain object instances is available, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Monitored Object Instances

Object

Description

jnxHrStoragePercentUsed.1

Monitors the /dev/ad0s1a: file system on the switch. This is the root file system mounted on /.

jnxHrStoragePercentUsed.2

Monitors the /dev/ad0s1e: file system on the switch. This is the configuration file system mounted on /config.

jnxOperatingCPU (RE0)

Monitors CPU usage by the Routing Engine (RE0).

jnxOperatingBuffer (RE0)

Monitors the amount of memory available on the Routing Engine (RE0).

sysApplElmtRunCPU

Monitors the CPU usage for each Junos OS process (also called daemon). Multiple instances of the same process are monitored and indexed separately.

sysApplElmtRunMemory

Monitors the memory usage for each Junos OS process. Multiple instances of the same process are monitored and indexed separately.

See Also

Configure Health Monitoring on Devices Running Junos OS

As the number of devices managed by a typical network management system (NMS) grows and the complexity of the devices themselves increases, it becomes increasingly impractical for the NMS to use polling to monitor the devices. A more scalable approach is to rely on network devices to notify the NMS when something requires attention.

On Juniper Networks routers, RMON alarms and events provide much of the infrastructure needed to reduce the polling overhead from the NMS. However, with this approach, you must set up the NMS to configure specific MIB objects into RMON alarms. This often requires device-specific expertise and customizing of the monitoring application. In addition, some MIB object instances that need monitoring are set only at initialization or change at runtime and cannot be configured in advance.

To address these issues, the health monitor extends the RMON alarm infrastructure to provide predefined monitoring for a selected set of object instances (for file system usage, CPU usage, and memory usage) and includes support for unknown or dynamic object instances (such as Junos OS processes).

Health monitoring is designed to minimize user configuration requirements. To configure health monitoring entries, include the health-monitor statement at the [edit snmp] hierarchy level:

Configuring monitoring events at the [edit snmp health-monitor] hierarchy level sets polling intervals for the overall system health. If you set these same options at the [edit snmp health-monitor idp] hierarchy level, an SNMP event is generated by the device if the percentage of dataplane memory utilized by the intrusion detection and prevention (IDP) system rises above or falls below your settings.

You can use the show snmp health-monitor operational command to view information about health monitor alarms and logs.

This topic describes the minimum required configuration and discusses the following tasks for configuring the health monitor:

Monitored Objects

When you configure the health monitor, monitoring information for certain object instances is available, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Monitored Object Instances

Object

Description

jnxHrStoragePercentUsed.1

Monitors the following file system on the router or switch:

/dev/ad0s1a:

This is the root file system mounted on /.

jnxHrStoragePercentUsed.2

Monitors the following file system on the router or switch:

/dev/ad0s1e:

This is the configuration file system mounted on /config.

jnxOperatingCPU (RE0)

Monitors CPU usage for Routing Engines (RE0 and RE1). The index values assigned to Routing Engines depend on whether the Chassis MIB uses a zero-based or ones-based indexing scheme. Because the indexing scheme is configurable, the proper index is determined when the router or switch is initialized and when there is a configuration change. If the router or switch has only one Routing Engine, the alarm entry monitoring RE1 is removed after five failed attempts to obtain the CPU value.

jnxOperatingCPU (RE1)

jnxOperatingBuffer (RE0)

Monitors the amount of memory available on Routing Engines (RE0 and RE1). Because the indexing of this object is identical to that used for jnxOperatingCPU, index values are adjusted depending on the indexing scheme used in the Chassis MIB. As with jnxOperatingCPU, the alarm entry monitoring RE1 is removed if the router or switch has only one Routing Engine.

jnxOperatingBuffer (RE1)

sysApplElmtRunCPU

Monitors the CPU usage for each Junos OS process (also called daemon). Multiple instances of the same process are monitored and indexed separately.

sysApplElmtRunMemory

Monitors the memory usage for each Junos OS process. Multiple instances of the same process are monitored and indexed separately.

Minimum Health Monitoring Configuration

To enable health monitoring on the router or switch, include the health-monitor statement at the [edit snmp] hierarchy level:

Configure the Falling Threshold or Rising Threshold

The falling threshold is the lower threshold (expressed as a percentage of the maximum possible value) for the monitored variable. When the current sampled value is less than or equal to this threshold, and the value at the last sampling interval is greater than this threshold, a single event is generated. A single event is also generated if the first sample after this entry becomes valid is less than or equal to this threshold. After a falling event is generated, another falling event cannot be generated until the sampled value rises above this threshold and reaches the rising threshold. You must specify the falling threshold as a percentage of the maximum possible value. The default is 70 percent.

By default, the rising threshold is 80 percent of the maximum possible value for the monitored object instance. The rising threshold is the upper threshold for the monitored variable. When the current sampled value is greater than or equal to this threshold, and the value at the last sampling interval is less than this threshold, a single event is generated. A single event is also generated if the first sample after this entry becomes valid is greater than or equal to this threshold. After a rising event is generated, another rising event cannot be generated until the sampled value falls below this threshold and reaches the falling threshold. You must specify the rising threshold as a percentage of the maximum possible value for the monitored variable.

To configure the falling threshold or rising threshold, include the falling-threshold or rising-threshold statement at the [edit snmp health-monitor] hierarchy level:

percentage can be a value from 1 through 100.

The falling and rising thresholds apply to all object instances monitored by the health monitor.

Configure the Interval

The interval represents the period of time, in seconds, over which the object instance is sampled and compared with the rising and falling thresholds.

To configure the interval, include the interval statement and specify the number of seconds at the [edit snmp health-monitor] hierarchy level:

seconds can be a value from 1 through 2147483647. The default is 300 seconds (5 minutes).

Log Entries and Traps

The system log entries generated for any health monitor events (thresholds crossed, errors, and so on) have a corresponding HEALTHMONITOR tag rather than a generic SNMPD_RMON_EVENTLOG tag. However, the health monitor sends generic RMON risingThreshold and fallingThreshold traps.

See Also

Configure Health Monitoring

This topic describes how to configure the health monitor feature for QFX Series devices.

The health monitor feature extends the SNMP RMON alarm infrastructure to provide predefined monitoring for a selected set of object instances (such as file system usage, CPU usage, and memory usage) and dynamic object instances (such as Junos OS processes).

In this procedure, the sampling interval is every 600 seconds (10 minutes), the falling threshold is 85 percent of the maximum possible value for each object instance monitored, and the rising threshold is 75 percent of the maximum possible value for each object instance monitored.

To configure health monitoring:

  1. Configure the health monitor:
  2. Configure the falling threshold:

    For example:

  3. Configure the rising threshold:

    For example:

  4. Configure the interval:

    For example:

See Also