Enable SNMP

Problem

I need SNMP access to an ESXi host.

Solution

1. Enable ssh access to the snmp host.
2. Enable the v1/v2c community:

   esxcli system snmp set --communities public

3. Ensure the system will start snmpd at boot time:

   esxcli system snmp set --enable true

4. Start the service:

   /etc/init.d/snmpd start

This works through at least ESXi 6.7 (but not on v4 or previous).

It died

On 6.7 (no updates), the snmpd will die after a while for unknown reasons. The "correct" fix is to move to a more recent update (I think U1 has the fix for this). However if this isn't immediately practical, you can bump the service:

$ ssh root@my-esxi-04 /etc/init.d/snmpd restart