Monitoring external network devices

testakis · Nov 8, 2010, 2:49 PM

Is there any way, using pfSense and SNMP, to monitor an external network device (e.g. a Cisco router) and gather its graphs inside pfsense?

I have tried some of the Network Management tools which are available as packages in pfSense, but they can just monitor pfSense' s interfaces.

Thanks in advance!

jimp · Nov 8, 2010, 4:45 PM

No, there aren't any packages for doing that on pfSense.

It's easy enough these days to setup Cacti, Zabbix, Pandora FMS, etc, and collect graphs on a dedicated machine.

testakis · Nov 9, 2010, 8:09 AM

Thank you for your prompt answer jimp.
I was just trying to find a way to turn to advantage the existence of the pfSense box, without having to install a second computer for that purpose.

Thanks once more!

jimp · Nov 9, 2010, 1:15 PM

If you really want to go down that road (which I wouldn't recommend, but I understand the desire to do) you could either look at the jailctl package which would let you run essentially a full freebsd install inside of an isolated location on the firewall, or you could install ESX on that box and have a VM for pfSense and a VM for other services.