snmp: getting the short interface name instead of long ifDescr (again)

Question

I'm using cricket to do some simple monitoring (including network devices) of my Debian-based servers.

The interfaces are identified by name (e.g. eth0, eth1,...), and cricket maps these names to the proper OIDs by looking them up in IF-MIB::ifDescr:

$ snmpwalk -Os -c public -v 1 wheezy 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2
iso.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.1 = STRING: "lo"
iso.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.2 = STRING: "eth0"
iso.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.3 = STRING: "eth1"

Everything worked cool until I upgraded my machine to Debian/jessie today. Now the reported interface names are a long description of the brand:

$ snmpwalk -Os -c public -v 1 jessie 1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2
iso.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.1 = STRING: "lo"
iso.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.2 = STRING: "Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection"
iso.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2.3 = STRING: "Intel Corporation 82576 Gigabit Network Connection"

While I find the long name annoying enough, it becomes useless as it is no longer unique: since the machine in question has two identical network cards built in, I just get the same name twice.

Is there a way to make snmpd report the short interface names?

Answer 1

It seems that using IF-MIB::ifDescr for the interface name is simply wrong. As the name of the OID implies, this is meant to be a (verbose) description ofthe interface, rather than a (unique) name.

The proper OID to use is IF-MIB::ifName

$ snmpwalk -Os -c public -v 1 wheezy 1.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1
iso.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1.1 = STRING: "lo"
iso.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1.2 = STRING: "eth0"
iso.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1.3 = STRING: "eth1"

$ snmpwalk -Os -c public -v 1 jessie 1.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1
iso.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1.1 = STRING: "lo"
iso.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1.2 = STRING: "eth0"
iso.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1.3 = STRING: "eth1"

In the case of cricket this means that i changed the cricket-configuration of the interface-map to:

OID    ifName                 1.3.6.1.2.1.31.1.1.1.1 

map interface-name
    base-oid    =   ifName
    match       =   %interface-name%