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Quick Start

docs/npm/device-metrics/quick-start.md

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Quick Start

Get one device polling in a few minutes, confirm Netdata auto-detected it, and read its interfaces. Do this on the Agent nearest the device — that Agent becomes your site's SNMP hub.

Before you start

You need:

  • A running Netdata Agent on the device's LAN.
  • SNMP enabled on the device, with a community string (SNMPv2c) or an SNMPv3 user.
  • The device reachable from the Agent on UDP/161.

Confirm reachability from the hub before touching Netdata:

bash
snmpget -v2c -c <community> <device-ip> .1.3.6.1.2.1.1.3.0

A sysUpTime value back means SNMP works. No answer means a firewall, ACL, or credential problem to fix first — not a Netdata issue.

1. Add the device

Open the SNMP configuration:

bash
cd /etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config go.d/snmp.conf

Add one job (SNMPv2c shown; for SNMPv3 see Configuration):

yaml
jobs:
  - name: core-switch-1
    hostname: 10.0.0.1
    community: public

Save and reload Netdata (for example sudo systemctl reload netdata, or restart per your install).

2. Confirm auto-detection

Open the Netdata dashboard. Within a poll cycle or two the device appears as its own node named after the job. You did not list any OIDs — the collector read the device's sysObjectID/sysDescr and applied every matching profile.

Check two things:

  • The node carries vendor/model labels and vendor-specific charts, not just a bare interface count. That confirms a real profile matched, not only generic collection. If it's bare, see Validation and Troubleshooting.
  • Interface charts show traffic, errors, discards, and operational status per port.

3. Read the interfaces

On the Live tab in the top navigation, select SNMP -> Interfaces from the Functions list (and pick the device) for a live, sortable table of every interface — traffic, status, errors, and discards — served from data already collected, with no extra requests to the device. If the device runs BGP or exposes licenses, snmp:bgp-peers and snmp:licenses are there too.

Next steps