Networking Guide
Chapter 8, Configuring the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

Testing trap delivery and reception

Testing trap delivery and reception

The commands trap_send (see trap_send(ADMN)) and trap_rece (see trap_rece(ADMN)) provide a means of testing the trap delivery mechanism.

The command trap_rece starts a daemon that displays, to standard output, information about SNMP traps received at the host on which it is running. It must be run with root permissions. Its syntax is:

trap_rece [-d]

When run with the -d option, trap_rece includes a packet dump in the output display.

A typical use for this command is to test whether an agent is successfully transmitting traps to a specific host. For such a test, include the host in the /etc/snmpd.trap configuration file that the agent uses to determine trap recipients. Start trap_rece on the host intended to receive the trap messages. Start the agent and verify that the intended host received a cold-start trap message.

The command trap_send sends SNMP traps to management stations. Its primary purpose is to test whether a management application is successfully receiving traps. Its syntax is:

trap_send ip_address community generic_trap_type [ enterprise_specific_trap_type ]

The argument generic_trap_type is an integer that specifies the type of trap to be generated and sent. Table 8-2, ``trap_send trap_type values'', shows the list of legal values for generic_trap_type. The optional argument enterprise_specific_trap_type is specified when the value of generic_trap_type is 6. The meanings and values for enterprise specific trap types are defined in the corresponding enterprise specific MIBs. 

Table 8-2 trap_send trap_type values

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 Option   Description
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 0        Cold Start
 1        Warm Start
 2        Link Down
 3        Link Up
 4        Authentication Failure
 5        EGP Neighbor Loss
 6        Enterprise Specific

See also: