Question: ok so as stated in the subject line i have an HP DL380 G7 running esxi 5.0 free and an ILO3. Is there any way for me to get some decent monitoring of the hardware without paying any extra money for a vmware license which allows me to set the SNMP community string, or without needing to purchase HP SIM? I don't seem to be able to get to the <https://[hostname]:2381> management page and from what i've read, that's linux/windows only. Also the firewall of esxi free doesn't seem to be able unblock that port for me. I seem to be receiving test traps from the device to my target server but nothing else.

What iv'e tried so far:
-logging into the ilo and setting trap destinations. That allows me to get test traps but i don't get any alerts when the drive status changes. This makes sense since I didn't see any place to setup an alert based on an event
-using VMA (vmware management assistant) to set the SNMP community string
-setting the esxi free firewall to accept connections on port 2381, though that seems like a dead end.

Any words of wisdom from someone else who has torn out their hair would be welcome!

Answer: 
This limitation is created to "help" you decide to purchase the paid version.

However if you enable SNMP during the evaluation period the service will remain active.

It is also possible to monitor the ESXi server via CIM/WBEM. See: <http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2010/04/hardware-health-monitoring-via-cim.html>
Another option is not to use SNMP, but to use the iLO XML interface. You can query health status through it by crafting some XML and making an HTTP request. I use this all the time (though for keeping inventory, not for monitoring).

If you don't want to hand-craft XML (and who in his right mind would), maybe look at the [python library and CLI tool](http://seveas.github.io/python-hpilo/) I wrote as I didn't want to do that either.