About SNMP Credentials
- Viktoryia Varapayeva (Deactivated)
NetMRI uses SNMP read-only community strings to collect data for its analysis. NetMRI is pre-configured with several commonly used community strings taken from the list of default community strings configured by the device vendor. If the community strings provided during installation do not work for a given device, the system tries well-known vendor defaults. When NetMRI guesses SNMP credentials for a device, it starts with the most secure user-provided credentials (SNMP v3) and works down to the least secure (SNMP v1/v2) credentials when deciding how to access the device. In all cases, NetMRI follows the specified priority order.
If a default community string works for the device, NetMRI begins normal SNMP processing, and the "Weak Community String" issue fires to alert you to this condition. You will see all vendor default community strings that were able to return SNMP data for a device in the Default Credentials Report.
Manually entered community strings are used first, in priority order, then the default community strings are tried in priority order if the Use Vendor Default Community Strings option is enabled in the Settings icon > Setup section > Collection and Groups > Global tab > Network Polling panel. That option allows you to disable the use of the vendor default community strings to determine which strings NetMRI can use. This is typically done in installations having tight security setups that have removed all vendor defaults from their installation. Note that this option does not prevent the vendor default from running.
NetMRI can periodically check for vendor default community strings. Checking for vendor default community strings can help ensure that the network meets compliance standards. You can add vendor-specific default community strings that may not be listed. NetMRI will only check for default vendor community strings when the Vendor Default Credential Collection option is enabled in the Settings icon > Setup > Collection and Groups > Global tab > Config Management panel.