snmp_exporter value ends up in a label (unwanted behavior)

[Stephan Schwarz]

Hi,

I'm having an issue which I don't quite understand.

I have successfully used the SNMP exporter now for a couple of devices, and so far the actual value that is returned always ended up as the metric value.

Now I tried to add different device (CheckPoint firewall) and the value is now added as a label instead.

For example, lets take the counter for conncurrent connections "asgCountersConcurrConnNum"

The SNMP exporter displays the information like this

# HELP asgCountersConcurrConnNum Number of concurrent connections - 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6
# TYPE asgCountersConcurrConnNum gauge
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersConcurrConnNum="58852",asgCountersIndex="1"} 1
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersConcurrConnNum="68239",asgCountersIndex="2"} 1
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersConcurrConnNum="N/A",asgCountersIndex="3"} 1
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersConcurrConnNum="N/A",asgCountersIndex="4"} 1

I'm pretty new to Prometheus, but I can't find an easy way to extract the asgCountersConcurrConnNum value in the label in order to graph this.

Is there an easy way to force the SNMP exporter to present the data like this instead?

asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersIndex="1"} 58852
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersIndex="2"} 68239

Alternatively, can I create a query that will select the metric I want and return the value inside the label instead of the "actual" (but wrong) value? If so, an example would be welcome.

I used a different tool in order to check how the data is presented.

Paessler SNMP Tester 5.2.3 
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (11 ms) : Device: <ip>
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (16 ms) : SNMP V2c
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (23 ms) : Walk 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (29 ms) : 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6.1.0 = "59714" [ASN_OCTET_STR]
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (38 ms) : 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6.2.0 = "68496" [ASN_OCTET_STR]
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (45 ms) : 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6.3.0 = "N/A" [ASN_OCTET_STR]
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (50 ms) : 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6.4.0 = "N/A" [ASN_OCTET_STR]

Kind regards,

Stephan Schwarz

[Brian Brazil]

On Tue, 21 Apr 2020 at 02:34, Stephan Schwarz <stephan...@live.com> wrote:

Hi,

I'm having an issue which I don't quite understand.

I have successfully used the SNMP exporter now for a couple of devices, and so far the actual value that is returned always ended up as the metric value.

Now I tried to add different device (CheckPoint firewall) and the value is now added as a label instead.

For example, lets take the counter for conncurrent connections "asgCountersConcurrConnNum"

The SNMP exporter displays the information like this

# HELP asgCountersConcurrConnNum Number of concurrent connections - 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6
# TYPE asgCountersConcurrConnNum gauge
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersConcurrConnNum="58852",asgCountersIndex="1"} 1
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersConcurrConnNum="68239",asgCountersIndex="2"} 1
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersConcurrConnNum="N/A",asgCountersIndex="3"} 1
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersConcurrConnNum="N/A",asgCountersIndex="4"} 1

I'm pretty new to Prometheus, but I can't find an easy way to extract the asgCountersConcurrConnNum value in the label in order to graph this.

Is there an easy way to force the SNMP exporter to present the data like this instead?

asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersIndex="1"} 58852
asgCountersConcurrConnNum{asgCountersIndex="2"} 68239

Alternatively, can I create a query that will select the metric I want and return the value inside the label instead of the "actual" (but wrong) value? If so, an example would be welcome.

No, label values are opaque strings to PromQL that you can't do any math on.

 

I used a different tool in order to check how the data is presented.

Paessler SNMP Tester 5.2.3 
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (11 ms) : Device: <ip>
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (16 ms) : SNMP V2c
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (23 ms) : Walk 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (29 ms) : 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6.1.0 = "59714" [ASN_OCTET_STR]
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (38 ms) : 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6.2.0 = "68496" [ASN_OCTET_STR]
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (45 ms) : 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6.3.0 = "N/A" [ASN_OCTET_STR]
4/21/2020 2:59:00 AM (50 ms) : 1.3.6.1.4.1.2620.1.48.20.25.1.6.4.0 = "N/A" [ASN_OCTET_STR]

As you can see here the vendor decided to present the integer value as a human readable string, which the snmp exporter then faithfully converts to a label as that's the only way a string can be represented.

You can use regexp_extracts to pull out the number, for example https://github.com/prometheus/snmp_exporter/blob/master/generator/generator.yml#L430

Brian

Kind regards,

Stephan Schwarz

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Brian Brazil

www.robustperception.io