The previous chapter talked about different approaches to verify remote computers and the services they offer. This chapter covers another way to monitor remote machines and devices.

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is designed to monitor and manage various devices connected to a network. Its main purpose is to create a standardized way to get and set parameters, regardless of the underlying hardware. The protocol allows the retrieval of information from a device and the setting of options, and covers the means for a device to notify other machines about a failure.

In this chapter, we will learn what SNMP is and how it works. We will also learn to configure SNMP on various types of machines and how to retrieve information using Nagios plugins.