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All this SNMPv2c talk and nobody mentions SNMPv3. In 2024. On air-gapped networks.
I don't care if your network has no outbound. Internal lateral exists. Default community strings exist. NetBotz ships with "public" enabled. I've seen it.
Use SNMPv3 or use Modbus with TLS. This is not optional.
Can confirm. Unboxed one last month for a site in Trenton. "public" was live. Also the default web creds were admin/apc. Customer hadn't changed them because "it's not on the internet."
I bring snacks. I also bring a checklist now.
In Manila we have humidity problems NetBotz doesn't believe. 85% RH for weeks during monsoon, the sensor reads "warning" but the rack is fine because we learned to seal and dehumidify properly. The sensor becomes noise.
I disabled alerting on humidity and monitor dew point instead. Calculated in LibreNMS with a custom OID. Much more useful for tropical deployments. APC should expose dew point natively, they don't.
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Following.
Member
As someone in Brussels I must formally object to this accurate characterization.
The EU Cyber Resilience Act is coming. Environmental monitoring will be "products with digital elements." Your self-hosted Zabbix? Not in scope. The sensor firmware? In scope. The importer liability chain? In scope.
Start keeping firmware SBOMs now. I am serious.
What is cheapest option for 10 racks no internet? I see NetBotz, AKCP, sensorProbe, all very expensive dollars. In Egypt we build with what we have.
Member
ESP32 + DHT22 + Tasmota firmware = temperature/humidity for maybe $8 per rack. Not enterprise grade. No compliance officer will sign it. But it works, it's local MQTT to whatever you run, and the hardware is trivial to source.
For leak detection, two-wire cable and a $3 comparator circuit. I've seen worse setups run for years.
This is the gap between "what works" and "what procurement allows."
DHT22 accuracy is ±2°C. In a datacenter you want ±0.5°C or better. You will false-positive yourself to death or miss the actual event.
SHT30 or SHT40 on I2C, same ESP32, same price basically, ±0.2°C. Still not calibrated but at least the numbers mean something.
Member OP
This is the conversation I wanted to have. The hobby-grade sensor path is viable for non-regulated environments if you validate. I've deployed ESPHome-based units in colo spaces for internal monitoring (not customer-facing SLA), with SHT35s and local InfluxDB. Two years, no failures.
The calibration drift is real though. I swap them annually against a reference Fluke. Cost of the reference unit is the barrier for small deployments.
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Windows Server running PRTG on-premise here. Yes I know. Someone has to.
The SNMPv3 point is well taken but PRTG's SNMPv3 implementation against APC gear is flaky. I fallback to SNMPv2c with IPsec tunnel between probe and core. Not ideal. Works.
Has anyone tried the new NetBotz 755? Supposed to fix the credential and SNMPv3 issues but I don't trust "supposed to."
