Re: Net-SNMP basic questions

On 22/11/06, Sagar Shukla <[email protected]> wrote:
> (1) when we do getRequest, from where the information is pulled ?
>      Is this from the MIBs ?

No.
The MIB is best thought of as a "specification document".
It describes what information is potentially available - how to refer
to it, and how to interpret the results.   But it does not automatically
provide the data itself.   That's the role of the agent.

> (3) What is the role of snmp-agent and snmp-server and snmp-client ?

"snmp agent" and "snmp server" are basically synonymous.
This is the program that provides the requested information.
But where does it get that information from?
   Typically, this will be retrieved from some other part of the system.
Perhaps pulled out of the operating system kernel, or by interrogating
another application.   (And the same information may well be retrieved
in different ways on different operating systems).

   The agent is a middle-man, who doesn't really know anything itself,
but knows who to ask for any particular request. Think of this as a
librarian - they typically won't know the answer to your question, but
they know how to find it.

The snmp client is the tool that talks to the agent, to ask the question.

> (2) If this information is pulled from the MIBs then do we need to
> develop a separate application/script to populate the MIBs with correct
> values ?

No - that's not how MIBs work.  See above.


> (4) For every MIB, is it necessary to have a loadable module ? Can we
> just write few scripts to populate a MIB without having a loadable
> module ?

It's necessary to have some form of code, that can respond to requests
for information from that MIB.  This code can be a loadable module, it can
be embedded within the agent itself, it can be a "subagent" (embedded
within another application", it can be an external script.
   There are various ways of implementing a MIB - but it all comes back to
the same bottom line - there needs to be *some* code somewhere, that
knows how to provide these particular values.

   So it's not really accurate to talk about "populating" a MIB.   Think of
the MIB as a design document, which needs to be "implemented".


Dave

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