# Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) polling
<a name="notification-polling"></a>

Rather than passively receiving SNMP traps from AWS Elemental Live, you can actively poll the SNMP interface.

You can interact with Elemental Live using a variety of network management systems. AWS Elemental products ship with the Net-SNMP (http://www.net-snmp.org/) command line tools to access the SNMP interface while logged into the system directly or over SSH. Examples in this document are given using net-snmp commands.

**To set up SNMP polling**

1. Either disable the node firewall, or enable external access to SNMP interface. 
   + For help disabling the firewall, see [Open ports on the firewall for Elemental Live nodes](config-wrkr-cf-cg-firewall.md).
   + External access to the SNMP interface is enabled by default. To check the setting, access the **Settings** page on the Elemental Live web interface and choose **SNMP**.

1. Query either individual variables, or the entire SNMP interface.

**To query individual variables**  
Use the Net-SNMP tools to query variables as follows.

   ```
   snmpget -c elemental_snmp -v2c -m {{<MIB>}} 
           localhost {{MIBvariable}}
   ```  
**Example**  

   ```
   snmpget -c elemental_snmp -v2c -m {{ELEMENTAL-MIB}} 
             localhost {{serviceStatus}}
   ```

   For a list of MIBs and their variables, see [Management Information Bases (MIBs) in Elemental Live](notification-polling-mibs.md).

**To query the entire SNMP interface**  
Use the Net-SNMP tools to do an snmpwalk to gather information about all of the running channels.

   ```
   snmpwalk -c elemental_snmp -v2c -m ELEMENTAL-MIB:ELEMENTAL-LIVE-MIB localhost
       elemental
   ```