Re: snmpusm and security of the initial user

VV> I read in the snmpusm manual that I need to have an "initial" user
VV> to create additional users. I am wondering about the security
VV> implications of this requirement. Seems like I will have to
VV> hard-code the snmpv3 password in the application I'm writing to wrap
VV> the snmpv3 user creation/deletion operations. Is there a way to
VV> avoid creating this initial user?

That really means that in the agent in order to create a new SNMPv3/USM
user you need to have an existing one to "clone" from.  It's a boot
strapping issue mostly (you have to authenticate with something ("a
user") in order to create a new one), but it's also because of the way
keys are handled in the protocol: you never send a raw key to the
server.  It's always based on a delta from a previous key (and this was
done in part because it gets around some export restrictions that really
don't matter as much that it's 10 years later).

I'm not sure why you need to hard-code passwords in things so I can't
answer that aspect for you.  Your description of your scenario isn't
clear enough for me to understand what you want to accomplish.

-- 
Wes Hardaker
Cobham Analytic Solutions

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