Introduction

snmpkit is a high-performance SNMP toolkit for Python, powered by Rust.

Why snmpkit?

• Fast — Rust-powered encoding is up to 127x faster than pure Python
• Async-first — Built on Python’s asyncio with uvloop
• Type-safe — Full type hints throughout
• Simple API — Clean, intuitive interface
• Complete — Both Agent and Manager APIs

What can you build?

SNMP Manager

Query and monitor SNMP devices:

import asyncio
from snmpkit.manager import Manager
 
async def main():
    async with Manager("192.168.1.1", community="public") as mgr:
        descr = await mgr.get("1.3.6.1.2.1.1.1.0")
        print(f"Device: {descr}")
 
        async for oid, value in mgr.bulk_walk("1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.2"):
            print(f"{oid} = {value}")
 
asyncio.run(main())

Use cases:

• Network monitoring and polling
• Device discovery and inventory
• Configuration management
• Trap receiving and alerting

SNMP Agent

Build AgentX subagents that connect to Net-SNMP’s snmpd:

import snmpkit
from snmpkit.agent import Agent, Updater
 
class MyUpdater(Updater):
    async def update(self):
        self.set_OCTETSTRING("1.0", "Hello, SNMP!")
        self.set_INTEGER("2.0", 42)
 
async def main():
    agent = Agent()
    agent.register("1.3.6.1.4.1.12345", MyUpdater())
    await agent.start()
 
snmpkit.run(main())

Use cases:

• Expose custom application metrics via SNMP
• Build network monitoring agents
• Create device management interfaces
• Implement enterprise MIBs

Performance

snmpkit’s Rust core delivers significant performance improvements:

See Manager Performance and Agent Performance for detailed benchmarks.

Next Steps

• Getting Started — Install snmpkit
• Manager Guide — Query SNMP devices
• Agent Guide — Build SNMP agents