SNMP FAQ

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS seen in the COMP.PROTOCOLS.SNMP newsgroup and 
[e-mail] mailing list. Lines beginning with a plus (+) indicate changes.
Please send me comments, info, corrections. Feel free to make copies and 
distribute at will. Thanks again to all those who have provided input. 
+Since I see the same questions, and the fact that most sites age Usenet
+articles, I will post this more frequently (every two weeks).
 
0) How do I remove myself from the snmp mailing list (or add my name to the 
   mailing list)? 
     Send mail to [e-mail]. Sending mail to [e-mail] 
     broadcasts the request to everyone on the network and may not even be 
     read by the person administering the mailing list. 
 
1) What SNMP packages are freely available? 
     CMU package 
          lancaster.andrew.cmu.edu [128.2.12.21] 
          snmp1.1b.tar 
     SNMP-DK (MIT SNMP Development Kit) 
          allspice.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.115] 
          snmp.tar 
  	  author: Chuck Davin <[e-mail]> 
     ISODE 
          nisc.nyser.net [192.33.4.10] pub/isode 
          isode-7.tar.Z 
          distribution: David Farber [phone] 
     SNMP_MON (for DOS) 
          enh.nist.gov [129.6.16.1] 
          snmplib.tar_z & snmpsrc.tar_z  
          author: Bob Crosson <[e-mail]> 
     The Sage 
          dutepp0.et.tudelft.nl /pub/Sage (no source) 
          mail: [e-mail] with subject '@@ help' 
     SNMPQL (uses either SNMP-DK or ISODE) 
          uu.psi.net 
          psisnmp/snmpql (directory) 
     Interactive Network Map (uses SNMP-DK) 
          ftp.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.36] 
          nets/map.tar.Z 
          author: Mike Patton <[e-mail]> 
     DPID package 
          (dpid is described in RFC1228, ping_eng: a useful sample subagent) 
          vm.utcs.utoronto.ca [128.100.100.2] 
          cd anonymous.204 
          dpid.tarbin 
          ping_eng.tarbin 
 
     I have only used the CMU package. I have found it fairly easy to work  
     with and to be pretty much a complete implementation. The MIT package 
     is less complete, but listed are a few extensions to the package. 
     ISODE (ISO Development Environment for BSD machines) is possibly  
     overkill (just the documentation is 3.5meg compressed). SNMP_MON was 
     a government sponsored project for DOS machines. 
      
3) Where can I get the vendor specific MIBs, or MIBs under development? 
     venera.isi.edu in directory "mib" (for vendor MIBS)
+    nic.ddn.mil [192.67.67.20] in directory "internet-drafts"
+    nnsc.nsf.net [192.31.103.6] in directory "internet-drafts"
+    munnari.oz.au [128.250.1.21] in directory "internet-drafts" (Pacific Rim)
+    nic.nordu.net [192.36.148.17] in directory "internet-drafts" (Europe)
 
4) How do I get a vendor ID assignment? 
     Contact: 
          Joyce K. Reynolds 
          Internet Asssigned Numbers Authority 
          USC/Information Sciences Institute 
          4676 Admiralty Way 
          Marina del Rey CA 90292-6695 USA 
          phone: [phone] 
          [e-mail] 
 
5) What is a good book for an introduction into SNMP? 
     Comer, Douglas 
          "Internetwokring with TCP/IP, Vol. 2" 
          Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991 
          ISBN 0-13-472242-6 
     Rose, Marshall T. 
          "The Simple Book: An Introduction to Management of 
          TCP/IP-based internets" 
          Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991 
          ISBN 0-13-812611-9 
     Rose, Marshall T. 
          "The Open Book: A Practical Perspective on 
          Open Systems Interconnection" 
          Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1989 
          ISBN 0-13-643016-3 
     Review:  
          The book by Comer discusses the various protocols which 
          make up the core of the TCP/IP suite, and includes sample 
          code for all of them, including SNMP (you can get machine 
          readable format from the publisher for $80, I am not sure 
          if it is available on the Internet, or what restrictions 
          there are on using the code). The book is written in a dry, 
          textbook style (not quite as nitty-gritty as Tannenbaum, 
          though). 
 
          Rose delves right into the technical details 
          but he spruces up the dry material with the occasional 
          digression. The Simple Book contains enough information to  
          start right away with SNMP (I wrote a prototype SNMP decode 
          for a protocol analyzer just from the information in the 
          book) and points to other sources of information (it has 
          its own FAQ which is much more complete than this FAQ). 
          On the whole, I wish more textbooks had this easy-going style. 
          The Open Book is useful for understanding some of the issues 
          of OSI (the big picture) but is not really necessary for  
          understanding SNMP (the Simple Book contains some elements 
          of the Open Book). 
 
6) How can I get RFCs (standards documents) pertaining to SNMP? 
      Download them from almost anywhere on the Internet. Or, you can 
      get them from SRI International. 
      FTP: 
          ftp.nisc.sri.com, rfc/rfcNNNN.txt 
      E-Mail: (possible from CompuServe, BIX, etc.) 
          [e-mail] 
          (Subject: (blank), body: "SEND RFCnnnn.TXT-1") 
      Mail: 
          SRI International, EJ291 
          DDN Network Information Center 
          333 Ravenswood Ave. 
          Menlo Park CA 94025 
          [phone] 
 
7) Where can I get IEEE/ISO/CCITT specs (like I can get RFCs)? 
+    Until recently, these documents have not been available on the Internet.
+    However, some have been made available (though the ASN.1 documents seem
+    to still be corrupted.
+    FTP: (CCITT Blue Book documents)
+         bruno.cs.colordo.edu
+         gatekeeper.dec.com, in pub/bruno.cs.colorado.edu/pub/standards
+         ftp.uu.net, in doc/standards
+         src.doc.ic.ac.uk (aka nic.ja.net), in doc/ccitt-standards (Europe)

     Mail:
          IEEE and ISO/IEC[IEEE] Standards: 
               Service Center 
               445 Hoes Lane PO Box 1331 
               Piscataway NJ 08855-1331 USA 
               [phone] 
          IEEE drafts: 
               IEEE Computer Society Documents 
               c/o AlphaGraphics 
               ATTN: P. Thrush 
               10215 N. 35th Ave., Suite A & B 
               Phoenix AZ 85051 
          ISO and ISO/IEC documents: 
               American National Standards Institute 
               1430 Broadway 
               New York NY 10018 USA 
 
8) How do I obtain RFCs and other packages at the locations mentioned
   above (using FTP)?
     During off hours, type in "FTP <address>". 
     When you are asked for a login name, type "anonymous". When it 
     asks for a password, type in your E-mail address. From then on, 
     you can use commands like "cd", "ls", and "get <name>" to 
     move through directories and get files. 

+    If you don't have direct Internet access, but mail access through
+    gateways, you can use various mail servers instead. For example,
+    to get help on using the mail server at Princeton AND using Compuserve,
+    you would send a message to ">INTERNET: [e-mail]"
+    with a subject "BITFTP HELP". The Compuserve Internet mail gateway
+    can take a couple of days to pass a message through, and I don't
+    really know the feasability of getting ISODE this way.
+    ">INTERNET:" is the Compuserve way of getting to the Internet.
+    Anybody know of other Mail servers, and how to access the Internet
+    using Genie, Prodigy, BIX, etc.???
     
9) What mailing lists/news groups discuss SNMP issues?
+    [e-mail] (SNMP in general)
+    [e-mail] (RMON MIB)
+    [e-mail] (Security issues)
+    [e-mail] (Device discovery)

10) What standards and drafts are there for SNMP?
+     rfc1052 IAB Recommendations     rfc1089 SNMP over Ethernet
+     rfc1109 Ad-hoc Review           rfc1161 SNMP over OSI
+     rfc1155 SMI                     rfc1248 OSPF MIB
+     rfc1213 MIB-II                  rfc1243 AppleTalk MIB
+     rfc1157 SNMP                    rfc1238 CLNS MIB
+     rfc1156 MIB-I                   rfc1231 IEEE 802.5 Token Ring MIB
+     ISO 8824 (ASN.1)                rfc1230 IEEE 802.4 Token Bus MIB
+     ISO 8825 (BER for ASN.1)        rfc1214 OSI MIB
+     rfc1215 Traps                   rfc1239 Reassignment of MIBs
+     rfc1212 Concise MIB defs        rfc1228 SNMP-DPI
+     rfc1187 Bulk table retrieval    rfc1227 SMUX
+     rfc1229 Generic-interface MIB extensions
+
+     Drafts changes constatnly (many will be upgraded to RFCs at the next
+     IETF meeting). There are currently draft standards for Remote Network
+     Monitoring (RMON), Security, hubs, bridges, and many hardware specific
+     MIBs (X.25, Ethernet, etc.). These are available at Internet draft
+     repositories (see FAQs 3,6, and 8 above).

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Disclaimer:   Any opinions are my own and are likely at odds with any 
 organization I am associated with, and I probably have made mistakes 
 in the information presented (satisfied you legal hacks?) 
 Copyright 1991 by Rob Graham                     [e-mail]