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Mercury Reference Manual
05-4446A01, Rev. E
This behavior was chosen based on RFC specifications. The SNMP
Manager and Agent do not exchange passwords, but actually exchange
keys based on passwords. If the Manager changes the Agent’s password,
the Agent does not know the new password. The Agent only knows the
new key. In this case, only the Manager knows the new password. This
could cause problems if the Manager loses the password. If that hap-
pens, the Agent becomes unmanageable. Resetting the Agent’s pass-
words (and therefore keys) to what is stored in flash memory upon
power-cycle prevents the serious problem of losing the Agent’s pass-
words.
If passwords are managed locally, they can be changed on the Agent (via
the console). Any attempts to change the passwords for the Agent via an
SNMP Manager will fail when the Agent is in this mode. Locally
defined passwords will survive a power-cycle.
In either case, the SNMP Manager needs to know the initial passwords
being used in order to talk to the Agent. If the Agent’s passwords are
configured via the Manager, they can be changed from the Manager. If
the passwords are managed locally, then the Manager must be re-con-
figured with any password changes in order to continue talking to the
Agent.
Password-Mode Management Changes
When the password management mode is changed, the active passwords
used by the Agent may also change. Some common scenarios are dis-
cussed below:
Common Scenarios
• Passwords are currently being handled by the Manager. The
assigned passwords are
Microwave
(Auth), and
Rochester
(Priv).
Configuration is changed to manage the passwords locally. The
passwords stored on the radio were Fairport (Auth), and
Churchville (Priv) (if local passwords have never been used,
then MDSAuthPwd and MDSPrivPwd are used). These pass-
words will now be used by the Agent to re-generate keys. The
Manager must know these passwords to talk to the Agent.
• Passwords are currently managed locally. The local passwords
are
Fairport
(Auth) and
Churchville
(Priv). Configuration is
changed to handle the passwords from the Manager. The same
passwords will continue to be used, but now the Manager can
change them.
• Passwords are currently managed locally. The local passwords
are
Fairport
(Auth) and
Churchville
(Priv). Passwords are changed
to
Brighton
(Auth) and
Perinton
(Priv). The Agent will immedi-
ately generate new keys based on these passwords and start
using them. The Manager will have to be re-configured to use
these new passwords.
Summary of Contents for Mercury 900
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