Re: clarifications of SNMPv2 related RFCs.

[[e-mail]]

Hi -

> Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
> Date: Thu, 30 Jan 97 19:42:44 CET
> From: "Bert Wijnen" <[e-mail]>
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: clarifications of SNMPv2 related RFCs.
...
> Dave Perkins reacted to a discussion on OwnerString in the if-mib and
> disman WG mailing lists about issues w.r.t. it being allowed to do
> new TC as a efinement of an existing TC .
> 
> I then thought abot the following strange thing that I do not yet
> grasp.
> 
> In RFC1903 I see the TCs for TDomain and TAddress
> 
> In RFC1906 I see snmpUDPDomain and snmpUDPAddress and others.
> 
> So if I have a MIB I would like to be able to define 2 columns
> in a table, one of type TDomain and one of TAddress, like:
> 
>    myTdomain  OBJECT-TYPE
>        SYNTAX   TDomain
>        ..etc..
> 
>    myTaddress OBJECT-TYPE
>        SYNTAX   TAddress
>        ..etc..
> 
> If an instance of myTdomain takes for instance the value of
> snmpUDPDomain, then the same instance of myTaddress takes the
> value of an octet string formatted according to the snmpUDPAddress.
> Sofar So good. But the question then is.... what is the use of
> snmpUDPAddress TC?? Should it not be based on TAddress with a
> refinement? And even then.... how do you handle that programmatic?
...

Refinement of TCs would seem to be a reasonable and useful thing.
It's not hard to support refinement of TC syntax in a compiler.  (In my
experience, enforcing the prohibition is more complex than supporting
refinement.)  RFC 1902 suggest that it is possible, a number of MIBs do
it, but RFC 1903 clause 3.5 doesn't support it.

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 Randy Presuhn            BMC Software, Inc. (Silicon Valley Division)
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