Environmental & facilities monitoring · 5 min read

Add a rack temperature and humidity sensor over SNMP

Standalone environmental sensors (rack-mount or DIN-rail) almost universally expose SNMP, using either a generic MIB or one specific to the sensor vendor.

What you'll need

  • A network-connected temperature/humidity sensor with SNMP enabled
  • The sensor's vendor MIB, if it uses a proprietary one rather than a generic environmental MIB
https://10.20.6.4/ Status Sensors Network SNMP Alarms Environmental sensor web interface SNMP Agent Enabled Community public Poll Interval 60s Trap Destination 10.20.0.50 ● Most rack sensors ship with SNMP already on — confirm the community string only.
1

Confirm SNMP is enabled on the sensor

Most dedicated environmental sensors ship with SNMP on by default; check the community string is set to something other than the factory default before relying on it.

2

Identify which MIB it uses

Generic sensors often support the standard environmental MIB; some vendors (APC's NetBotz line, for instance) use their own. Check the sensor's documentation if Linivo doesn't recognize it as a known profile automatically.

3

Add the sensor in Linivo and set thresholds

Once polling, set high/low thresholds for temperature and humidity based on your equipment's actual operating range, not a generic default, since a server closet and a purpose-built data hall have very different acceptable bands.