SNMP Trap and SigNoz Integration

Input and output integration overview

The SNMP Trap Telegraf plugin enables the receipt of SNMP notifications, facilitating comprehensive network monitoring by capturing important events from network devices.

This configuration turns any Telegraf agent into a Remote Write publisher for SigNoz, streaming rich metrics straight into the SigNoz backend with a single URL change.

Integration details

SNMP Trap

The SNMP Trap plugin serves as a receiving endpoint for SNMP notifications, known as traps and inform requests. Operating over UDP, it listens for incoming notifications, which can be configured to arrive on a specific port. This plugin is integral to network monitoring and management, allowing systems to collect and respond to SNMP traps sent from various devices across the network, including routers, switches, and servers. The plugin supports secure transmission options through SNMPv3, enabling authentication and encryption parameters to protect sensitive data. Additionally, it gives users the flexibility to configure multiple aspects of SNMP like MIB file locations, making it adaptable for various environments and use cases. Transitioning from the deprecated netsnmp backend to the more current gosmi backend is recommended to leverage its enhanced features and support. Users implementing this plugin can effectively monitor network events, automate responses to traps, and maintain a robust network monitoring infrastructure.

SigNoz

SigNoz is an open source observability platform that stores metrics, traces, and logs. When you deploy SigNoz, its signoz-otel-collector-metrics service exposes a Prometheus Remote Write receiver (default :13133/api/v1/write). By configuring Telegraf’s Prometheus plugin to point at this endpoint, you can push any Telegraf collected metrics, SNMP counters, cloud services, or business KPIs—directly into SigNoz. The plugin natively serializes metrics in the Remote Write protobuf format, supports external labels, metadata export, retries, and TLS or bearer-token auth, so it fits zero-trust and multi-tenant SigNoz clusters. Inside SigNoz, the data lands in ClickHouse tables that back Metrics Explorer, alert rules, and unified dashboards. This approach lets organizations unify Prometheus and OTLP pipelines, enables long-term retention powered by ClickHouse compression, and avoids vendor lock-in while retaining PromQL-style queries.

Configuration

SNMP Trap

[[inputs.snmp_trap]]
  ## Transport, local address, and port to listen on.  Transport must
  ## be "udp://".  Omit local address to listen on all interfaces.
  ##   example: "udp://127.0.0.1:1234"
  ##
  ## Special permissions may be required to listen on a port less than
  ## 1024.  See README.md for details
  ##
  # service_address = "udp://:162"
  ##
  ## Path to mib files
  ## Used by the gosmi translator.
  ## To add paths when translating with netsnmp, use the MIBDIRS environment variable
  # path = ["/usr/share/snmp/mibs"]
  ##
  ## Deprecated in 1.20.0; no longer running snmptranslate
  ## Timeout running snmptranslate command
  # timeout = "5s"
  ## Snmp version; one of "1", "2c" or "3".
  # version = "2c"
  ## SNMPv3 authentication and encryption options.
  ##
  ## Security Name.
  # sec_name = "myuser"
  ## Authentication protocol; one of "MD5", "SHA", "SHA224", "SHA256", "SHA384", "SHA512" or "".
  # auth_protocol = "MD5"
  ## Authentication password.
  # auth_password = "pass"
  ## Security Level; one of "noAuthNoPriv", "authNoPriv", or "authPriv".
  # sec_level = "authNoPriv"
  ## Privacy protocol used for encrypted messages; one of "DES", "AES", "AES192", "AES192C", "AES256", "AES256C" or "".
  # priv_protocol = ""
  ## Privacy password used for encrypted messages.
  # priv_password = ""

SigNoz

[[outputs.prometheusremotewrite]]
  ## SigNoz OTEL-Collector metrics endpoint (Prometheus Remote Write receiver)
  ## Default port is 13133 when you install SigNoz with the Helm chart
  url = "http://signoz-otel-collector-metrics.monitoring.svc.cluster.local:13133/api/v1/write"

  ## Add identifying labels so you can slice & dice the data later
  external_labels = { host = "${HOSTNAME}", agent = "telegraf" }

  ## Forward host metadata for richer dashboards (SigNoz maps these to ClickHouse columns)
  send_metadata = true

  ## ----- Authentication (comment out what you don’t need) -----
  # bearer_token   = "$SIGNOZ_TOKEN"          # SaaS tenant token
  # basic_username = "signoz"                 # Basic auth (self-hosted)
  # basic_password = "secret"

  ## ----- TLS options (for SaaS or HTTPS self-hosted) -----
  # tls_ca                  = "/etc/ssl/certs/ca.crt"
  # tls_cert                = "/etc/telegraf/certs/telegraf.crt"
  # tls_key                 = "/etc/telegraf/certs/telegraf.key"
  # insecure_skip_verify    = false

  ## ----- Performance tuning -----
  max_batch_size = 10000      # samples per POST
  timeout        = "10s"
  retry_max      = 3

Input and output integration examples

SNMP Trap

1. Centralized Network Monitoring: Integrate the SNMP Trap plugin into a centralized monitoring solution to receive alerts about network devices in real-time. By configuring the plugin to listen for traps from various routers and switches, network administrators can swiftly react to issues, such as device outages or critical thresholds being surpassed. This setup enables proactive management and quick resolutions to network problems, ensuring minimal downtime.

2. Automated Incident Response: Use the SNMP Trap plugin to trigger automated incident response workflows whenever specific traps are received. For instance, if a trap indicating a hardware failure is detected, an automated script could be initiated to gather diagnostics, notify support personnel, or even attempt a remediation action. This approach enhances the efficiency of IT operations by reducing manual interference and speeding up response times.

3. Network Performance Analytics: Deploy the SNMP Trap plugin to collect performance metrics along with traps for a comprehensive view of network health. By aggregating this data into analytics platforms, network teams can analyze trends, identify bottlenecks, and optimize performance based on historical data. This allows for informed decision-making and strategic planning around network upgrades or changes.

4. Integrating with Alerting Systems: Connect the SNMP Trap plugin to third-party alerting systems like PagerDuty or Slack. Upon receiving predefined traps, the plugin can send alerts to these systems, enabling teams to be instantly notified of important network events. This integration ensures that the right people are informed at the right time, helping maintain high service levels and quick issue resolution.

SigNoz

1. Multi-Cluster Federated Monitoring: Drop a Telegraf DaemonSet into each Kubernetes cluster, tag metrics with cluster=<name>, and Remote Write them to a central SigNoz instance. Ops teams get a single PromQL window across prod, staging, and edge clusters without running Thanos sidecars.

2. Factory-Floor Edge Gateway: A rugged Intel NUC on the shop floor runs Telegraf to scrape Modbus PLCs and environmental sensors. It batches readings every 5 seconds and pushes them over an intermittent 4G link to SigNoz SaaS. ClickHouse compression keeps costs low while AI-based outlier detection in SigNoz flags overheating motors before failure.

3. SaaS Usage Metering: Telegraf runs alongside each micro-service, exporting per-tenant counters (api_calls, gigabytes_processed). Remote Write streams the data to SigNoz where a scheduled ClickHouse materialized view aggregates usage for monthly billing—no separate metering stack required.

4. Autoscaling Feedback Loop: Combine Telegraf’s Kubernetes input with the Remote Write output to publish granular pod CPU and queue-length metrics into SigNoz. A custom SigNoz alert fires when P95 latency breaches 200 ms and a GitOps controller reads that alert to trigger a HorizontalPodAutoscaler tweak—closing the loop between observability and automation.

Feedback

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