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Trap Console 2.1 Available!

Trap Console is an SNMP trap management application which allows users to visualize SNMP traps in a human-readable form. Both SNMP traps and syslog messages can be logged or stored to a database. User can receive pre-assigned notifications, launch 3rd party applications in response to specific SNMP traps, forward, discard and generate SNMP traps, all that from within a simple easy-to-use Web browser interface.

Due to its trap forwarding capabilities, Trap Console can be used in conjunction with other network management applications to provide structured trap handling through filtering and selective forwarding of the SNMP trap traffic.

Its selective processing and support for syslog protocol can be combined to perform various message conversions:

• Convert SNMP traps between SNMP versions and protocols (SNMPv1, SNMPv2, UDP, TCP).
• Convert SNMP traps to email messages.
• Forward syslog messages as SNMP traps and vice versa.
• Forward syslog messages via email.

The pure Java implementation of Trap Console, together with the Web-browser user interface makes Trap Console a powerful service, that can run on virtually any hardware and/or software platform (with a Java VM available). It is accessible from any computer over Internet or Intranet via any Web browser.

• Principles of Operation
• Requirements - Java VM
• User Interface - Web Browser
• SNMP Traps - browse, read and send them
• MIB Compiler
• Rules and Actions
• Integration with other Management Applications
• Performance Tuning

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Principles of Operation

The picture below shows the conceptual schema of the Trap Console operation:

1. SNMP trap arrives to the Trap Receiver
2. Using the MIB database, the Trap Receiver decodes the trap and passes it to the Rule Processor
3. The Rule Processor matches the trap against the database of rules, pre-set by Trap Console administrator
4. The Rule Processor calls the Action Processor to perform actions, defined in matching rules.

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Requirements - Java VM

Trap Console was written to fulfil the need for a portable back-end service, independent of the hardware and operating system it runs on, easily accessible from a platform-independent client.

Trap Console is written in pure Java. Therefore the only requirement to run Trap Console, is an operating system where Java Virtual Machine can run.

Trap Console was extensively tested on Windows platforms as well as on Linux operating system.

Any frame-enabled Web browser supporting JavaScript can serve as the user interface.

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User Interface - Web Browser

Trap Console contains an embedded Web server. It is possible to access Trap Console from any place, where a Web browser is available, no matter whether it is inside your Intranet or over the Internet. Password protection, together with advanced session management guarantees a secure use of Trap Console.

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SNMP Traps - browse, read and send them

Trap Console not only manages incoming SNMP traps, it also provides you with the complete information about SNMP traps in all registered MIBs, including descriptions of traps as well as descriptions of all values that traps can carry.

Trap Console lets you choose an SNMP trap, enter the desired trap values and send the trap to any host.

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MIB Compiler

Trap Console's integrated MIB compiler lets you compile new MIBs for Trap Console. The MIB Manager's upload feature makes it possible to upload new MIB files right from your web browser.

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Rules and Actions

Trap Console follows user-definable rules to decide, which kind of actions to perform when handling a particular SNMP trap.

There are nine types of actions available in Trap Console. Apart of the standard logging to the console window as well as to multiple files, there are two actions available for forwarding SNMP traps and for generating new SNMP traps based on the properties of the incoming trap, plus the possibility to send custom e-mail messages or establish a telnet (socket) session managed by the script. Another action type enables to write trap information to any JDBC compliant database. There is also an action for logging trap information using BSD syslog protocol to a remote syslog server. Finally it is possible to launch a 3rd party application in response to the incoming trap.

To pass trap-specific information into actions and scripts is possible through use of macros.

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Integration with other Management Applications

Due to its trap forwarding capability, Trap Console is an ideal tool for the first-stage filtering of the trap traffic. Trap Console can manage SNMP traps at remote sites, forwarding only the important traps to the high-level management console application, possibly minimizing traffic over slower lines.

Trap Console can also communicate with other applications through its generic telnet connector module. The socket communication is controlled by the user-defined script. Access to all properties and values of the respective SNMP trap is available with Trap Console macros.

Trap Console can act like a syslog server converting received syslog messages into traps, and processing them identically as an SNMP originated traps. Embedded syslog converter builds a trap PDU adding syslog message attributes as values of variables defined in included CSCARE-SYSLOG-MIB MIB. Forwarding of trap information to a remote syslog server is possible with a special syslog action.

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Performance Tuning

Trap Console was designed with great care to guarantee its safe operation over long periods of time. User can decide about how much resources to allocate for Trap Console. Trap Console makes sure it won't "eat up" resources of the system it is running on even during temporary trap storms.

Trap Console is processing incoming traps using UDP trap packet queue and TCP trap connection queue, each capable to allocate up to 32 request handling threads. Additional requests are being placed into a buffer which is able to hold up to 256 objects by default. When all resources are in use, additional traps are dropped and connections rejected. Queue statistics are available on the Runtime page under corresponding receiver tab, together with a form allowing to manage the maximum number of request handling threads and the maximum length of the queue buffer.