During a recent remodel, I rewired my home with CAT-6 everywhere and the Netgear GS108E ProSafe Smart Switch. The 'E' suffix indicates that this is a "managed" switch. Sadly, it required outboard software that only runs on win-dose. That was okay, but I've made the switch to Linux Mint everywhere and use windows for sunlight and fresh air.

The switches claim that one can use SNMP software to manage them as well. The leads to two questions:

1. Has anyone in LQ-land used SNMP to manage smart switches?
2. (grin) Has anyone in LQ-land used SNMP enough to tell me how to get started?

I'm starting to read using Protocol: Simple Network Management (SNMP). I'll follow the yellow bricks and sparkling squirrels from there. However, I'd really appreciate a guide or at least some sign posts.

Thanks,
~~~ 0;-Dan

I went looking for the manual for this switch, but was not able to find the GS108E among the "smart" series from NetGear. Did you mean the GS108T?

Anyway, most "smart" switches have a web interface. The Windows application is normally only needed to set/change the IP address on the device. If you know the default IP address, you should be able to connect to the switch directly.

To use SNMP, you will need to give the switch an IP address and specify a community name (or username/password for SNMPv3). SNMP is really quite simple: each setting or parameter has an SNMP OID (think of it as an address), and you can read ("GET" in SNMP terminology) and sometimes write to ("SET") those OIDs using various SNMP-capable programs, the most advanced of which are known as SNMP Management Stations.

OIDs are organized in a tree-like structure, and each "leaf" has a numeric path name like ".1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.10". It's possible to refer to these OIDs by names rather than numbers, but for manufacturer-specific OIDs you'll need a special text file naming and describing the various SNMP OIDs available on a given device. This file is called a MIB (Management Information Base) and can usually be downloaded from the manufacturer's web site.

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I haven't used SNMP, but there is software that runs under Linux:

https://github.com/tabacha/ProSafeLinux

It's a hack, but it seems to work fine. I haven't used it with passwords on the switches, but for setting up VLAN and checking status it seems adequate.

And most smart switches default to DHCP, which means all you need to do is log into your DHCP server, look at the clients list, and find it.

I had to do that recently with a Netgear XS712T. Boot it up, log into the network's DHCP server, find the Netgear switch and its IP, open a web browser and go to the IP, log in using the default username/password, and everything's normal from there.