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SNMP Plugin for Unraid

This plugin installs the SNMP suite of tools on Unraid, a NAS operating system based on Slackware. More information about the SNMP library can be found at http://www.net-snmp.org/

The main objectives of this repository are:

  • to store compiled .txz files and .plg files that Unraid users need to install the SNMP Unraid plugin
  • to track the source code that makes this plugin work

Installation sequence

  • An Unraid user gets the link to the raw snmp.plg file hosted on Github, such as https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubedzero/unraid-snmp/main/snmp.plg
  • They paste the URL into the text input of the "Install Plugin" tab of the Plugins Unraid UI and push "Install"
  • Unraid makes a local copy of the snmp.plg file in /boot/config/plugins/snmp.plg which exists persistently on the Unraid USB drive
  • Unraid automatically downloads the .txz packages declared in the snmp.plg file. In this case, it is Perl, libnl, net-snmp, and our custom-built file, unraid-snmp. They are downloaded into /boot/config/plugins/snmp/ so they needn't be re-downloaded on reboots
    • A side effect of the USB caching and a limitation of the Unraid Plugin system is that the MD5 of the cached file is not checked, merely the presence of the file. The files on the USB can be modified as long as the filenames don't change. When the plugin is reinstalled (at reboot, for example) the download will be skipped because the file appears to exist. Then, the modified file will be used during installation.
  • Unraid runs upgradepkg --install-new packagename.txz to run the package's installation commands. It uninstalls any package of the same name before doing this installation, rather than failing.
    • This happens in a particular, defined order. perl and libnl are needed for the installation of net-snmp which is needed for the installation of unraid-snmp
    • Each package's install usually consists of copying files out of the .txz to various places in the OS. Then, a doinst.sh shell script can run to create symbolic links or perform other modifications and setup
    • The doinst.sh script for unraid-snmp is rather involved. Most of the Unraid-specific customization is located within.
  • Unraid then runs the shell script embedded towards the end of the snmp.plg file, which validates that SNMP is functioning and fails the plugin installation otherwise.

Making PLG Updates

Since most of the logic exists in the compiled unraid-snmp.txz file, the snmp.plg file needs very few updates:

  • The changelog should be updated with the modifications made
  • The plugin version should be incremented so the Unraid plugin update checker knows a newer version is available
    • The plugin version is also referenced in the filename of the unraid-snmp.txz package, so its name may need updating to keep in sync
  • The .txz filenames and their corresponding MD5 checksums should be updated
    • md5sum packagename.txz on Unraid, or md5 packagename.txz on macOS will print out the MD5 of the file
    • Updates to these files should also be checked into Git and stored under the ./packages/ directory

Making TXZ Updates

Changing any of the numerous files under the ./source/ directory will require a rebuild of the unraid-snmp.txz file. The ./source/ directory is only for tracking code changes and does not affect the code deployed to Unraid.

The createpackage.sh script can assist with creating the package, but is provided mostly for convenience. The following instructions will make use of it, but the commands within can be run manually just as easily.

The key to creating these Slackware packages is to use makepkg which is provided on Slackware. For this reason, I build the packages on my Unraid server.

  • Get the source directory from macOS over to Unraid using rsync -vpr "~/GitHub/kubedzero/unraid-snmp/source/*" root@unraid:/tmp/packageSource/

    • recursively copy all source files to the Unraid server with IP unraid
    • replace unraid with 192.168.1.10 or whatever your server's IP is
    • NOTE: v for verbose, p for permissions, r for recursive. No need for group, owner, time, etc that would be encapsulated in -a. If -a is used, you might see rsync: [generator] chown "/boot/packageSource/source" failed: Operation not permitted (1) due to users/owners/groups not existing on the target system
    • NOTE that permissions (chmod and executable) don't get copied over with SCP, so this must be manually checked for accuracy scp -r ~/GitHub/kubedzero/unraid-snmp/source root@unraid:/tmp/packageSource/
    • Confirm that it exists correctly in Unraid as /tmp/packageSource/many-files-here and NOT /tmp/packageSource/source/many-files-here. Depending on if files already existed there, different behavior could result. This will affect the TXZ packaging. Another way this could happen is if you copy just the directory (rsync directory) versus the directory's contents (rsync directory/*)

  • Copy the createpackage.sh script as well: scp ~/GitHub/kubedzero/unraid-snmp/createpackage.sh root@unraid:/tmp/

  • Run a remote SSH command on macOS to build the package: ssh -t root@unraid "cd /tmp/ && bash /tmp/createpackage.sh 2023.02.12 /tmp/packageSource/"

    • The -t command executes everything in the double quotes on the Unraid server
    • The command first establishes a location by moving into the /tmp/ directory
    • It then calls bash /tmp/createpackage.sh because Unraid changed to not allow direct execution, aka just executing /tmp/createpackage.sh
    • createpackage.sh is given the argument 2023.02.12 for the package naming. It does not affect the way the package is created aside from the filename.
    • It is also given the directory where the files and folders belonging in the package live, which we copied over earlier: /tmp/packageSource/
    • It creates the completed package unraid-snmp-2023.02.12-x86_64-1.txz in the directory we called the command from, /tmp/
    • It will also output the MD5 of the created package

  • Diving into what createpackage.sh is actually doing

    • It confirms makepkg is installed, preventing accidental usage on macOS
    • It takes the input plugin version and constructs the package filename in typical Slackware format: packagename-version-x86_64-1.txz or unraid-snmp-2023.02.12-x86_64-1.txz
    • It cleans out .DS_Store files from the source directory (provided as the second argument), to make sure macOS artifacts don't get included during package creation
    • The makepkg command bundles everything in the directory from where it was called into the package, so in preparation, the script moves to the source directory (provided as the second argument)
    • The makepkg command is invoked and the package is created (outside the source directory, as required by the tool)
    • The MD5 of the created package is computed and printed for convenience

  • Now we need to copy the compiled package back to macOS, where our Git repository lives. scp "root@unraid:/tmp/*.txz" ~/GitHub/kubedzero/unraid-snmp/packages

    • This copies any .txz file in /tmp/ so it doesn't have to be updated for version bumps, but *.txz can just as easily be replaced with the full name unraid-snmp-2023.02.12-x86_64-1.txz if desired

  • Now we need to update the MD5 listed in the snmp.plg file for the unraid-snmp.txz package we copied over. I do this manually, using the printout from the createpackage.sh script. A sample MD5 is 09655c2ee9391e64ff7584b2893b5454

  • Now update the plugin version in the snmp.plg file if it hasn't already been done, commit the code and package changes, and push to GitHub

  • Done!

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