diff --git a/.pylintrc b/.pylintrc
index 0cf9e9188ed3f..d21bafd15f063 100644
--- a/.pylintrc
+++ b/.pylintrc
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ jobs=0
 # TODO: Why do we need persistence?
 persistent=yes
 extension-pkg-whitelist=rrdtool,_ldap,netifaces,pymssql
-bad-functions=basestring,unicode,file,cmp,apply,execfile,reduce,reload
+bad-functions=unichr,basestring,unicode,file,cmp,apply,execfile,reduce,reload
 
 [MESSAGES CONTROL]
 disable=
diff --git a/cmk/base/snmp.py b/cmk/base/snmp.py
index be6db082d9063..76f40ac1fc8c6 100644
--- a/cmk/base/snmp.py
+++ b/cmk/base/snmp.py
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 import os
 import subprocess
 from typing import Tuple, Optional, Any, Dict, List  # pylint: disable=unused-import
+import six
 
 import cmk.utils.debug
 import cmk.utils.tty as tty
@@ -499,7 +500,7 @@ def hex_encode_value(v):
 
 
 def _oid_to_bin(oid):
-    return u"".join([unichr(int(p)) for p in oid.strip(".").split(".")])
+    return u"".join([six.unichr(int(p)) for p in oid.strip(".").split(".")])
 
 
 def _extract_end_oid(prefix, complete):