Smokeping_probes_DismanPing(3)

📦
version 2.9.0 · 12 versions
, in alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24

💅 Smokeping_probes_DismanPing(3) — DISMAN-PING-MIB Probe for SmokePing

okay so bestie, this is a page from the SmokePing manual — the Smokeping_probes_DismanPing(3) one — and it's literally about a probe that makes somebody else's router do the pinging for you. remote work era for network monitoring, we love to see it 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

Smokeping::probes::DismanPing — the DISMAN-PING-MIB Probe for SmokePing. that's the whole name, no cap.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

here's the shape of it, exactly as it goes in your config:

*** Probes ***

+DismanPing

offset = 50%
pings = 15
step = 300

# The following variables can be overridden in each target section
/^influx_.+/ = influx_location = In the basement
ownerindex = smokeping
packetsize = 56
pinghost = pinger@router.example.com # mandatory
pingsrc = 192.0.2.9

# [...]

*** Targets ***

probe = DismanPing # if this should be the default probe

# [...]

+ mytarget
# probe = DismanPing # if the default probe is something else
host = my.host
/^influx_.+/ = influx_location = In the basement
ownerindex = smokeping
packetsize = 56
pinghost = pinger@router.example.com # mandatory
pingsrc = 192.0.2.9

like, look at it. gorgeous. pinghost is the mandatory one, don't forget her 💖

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so instead of your SmokePing box doing the pinging itself, this probe uses the DISMAN-PING-MIB to get a remote system to send the probes for you. delegation! main character energy for the remote box, honestly. 👑

🎀 VARIABLES 🎀

the probe-specific ones, aka the ones that live in the probe section

  • offset — bestie, if you've got a million probes all firing at the exact same moment your network is gonna have a bad time 😭 so you can shift when each probe kicks off using this. the offset is either a percentage of the total interval, or the word random. if you don't set it here, the offset from the General section gets used instead. important: this does NOT touch the RRDs themselves — it's literally just about when data acquisition starts. (psst, this variable only does anything if concurrentprobes is set in the General section.)

example value: 50%

  • pings — how many pings get sent to each target, obviously. but heads up 🚨 the max value for DismanPing MIP is 15, which is less than the SmokePing default, so this class carries its own default value. if your Database section specifies something less than 15, you gotta set it for this probe too. and ngl, the number of pings baked into the RRD files is fixed at generation time — change this parameter later and you'll have to delete the old RRD files or somehow convert them. no taking it back 💀

example value: 15

default value: 15

  • step — how long the base interval is for this probe, in case it should differ from whatever the Database section says. same deal as above, fr fr: the step inside the RRD files is locked in when they're first generated, so if you change step afterwards you're deleting old RRD files or converting them, periodt. (and again, this variable only applies if concurrentprobes is set in the General section.)

example value: 300

the target-specific ones, aka per-target overrides 🎯

  • /^influx_.+/ — this is a tag that gets shipped off to influxdb and has zero impact on the actual probe measurement. the tag name gets sent without the influx_ prefix — that gets swapped out for tag_ instead. tags are for filtering, iykyk.

example value: influx_location = In the basement

  • ownerindex — the SNMP OwnerIndex used when setting up the test. if you're running VACM, this can map to a Security Name or Group Name of the entity running the test.

by default this will be set to

example value: smokeping

  • packetsize — lets you configure the packet size for the pings being sent. minimum is 8, maximum is 65507. pro tip from the page: use the same number as with fping if you want the same packet sizes flying around your network. ✨

default value: 56

  • pinghost — the (mandatory) pinghost parameter says which remote system executes the pings, plus the SNMP community string on that device. it's giving community@host, iconic.

example value: pinger@router.example.com

this setting is mandatory. like, required required. 🙈

  • pingsrc — the (optional) pingsrc parameter is the source address used for the pings. if you do specify it, it must identify an IP address assigned to pinghost — no making up addresses, bestie.

example value: 192.0.2.9

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Bill Fenner <fenner@research.att.com>, Tobi Oetiker <tobi@oetiker.ch> — legends, both of them.

💜 NOTES 💜

this probe uses the menu name of a test as part of the unique index. if the menu name is longer than 32 characters, the last 32 characters are used for the index. and here's the scary part 😭 collisions are not detected — they just quietly cause one test's results to be used for all the colliding names. so like, be careful out there.

CONFIGURATION

this probe needs read/write access to the pingCtlTable. it also needs read-only access to the pingResultsTable and the pingHistoryTable. the DISMAN-PING-MIB is structured so you can restrict by pingCtlOwnerIndex. this probe uses a pingCtlOwnerIndex of "SP on hostname" as the ownerindex by default; use ownerindex to configure it if you need to. 🫡

SAMPLE JUNOS CONFIGURATION

this config lets the community pinger have read-write access to the whole DISMAN-PING-MIB, but only when it's sourced from the manager at 192.0.2.134. conditional access, we stan:

snmp {
    view pingMIB {
        oid .1.3.6.1.2.1.80 include;
    }
    community pinger {
        view pingMIB;
        authorization read-write;
        clients {
            192.0.2.134/32;
        }
    }
}

SAMPLE CONFIGURATIONS NOTE

this configuration allows the pinger community full access to the DISMAN-PING-MIB. there's info in the description of pingCtlOwnerIndex in RFC 4560 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4560) about using the vacmViewTreeFamilyTable to restrict access even further. the author has not tried this method. 🙈 honest queen.

⭐ little vibe check before you go: pinghost is mandatory, the pings cap is 15, and changing pings or step after the RRDs exist means deleting or converting those files. you've been warned, bestie 💅

and that's the whole page, literally all of it — brought to you by SmokePing version 2.9.0, dated 2025-06-30, on the Smokeping_probes_DismanPing(3) manual page. mwah, go ping something remote 🧚💖

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