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Configuring SNMP
Overview
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet standard protocol widely used for a
management station to access and operate the devices on a network, regardless of their vendors,
physical characteristics, and interconnect technologies.
SNMP enables network administrators to read and set the variables on managed devices for state
monitoring, troubleshooting, statistics collection, and other management purposes.
SNMP framework
The SNMP framework contains the following elements:
•
SNMP manager
—Works on an NMS to monitor and manage the SNMP-capable devices in the
network.
•
SNMP agent
—Works on a managed device to receive and handle requests from the NMS, and
sends notifications to the NMS when events, such as an interface state change, occur.
•
Management Information Base (MIB)
—Specifies the variables (for example, interface status and
CPU usage) maintained by the SNMP agent for the SNMP manager to read and set.
Figure 51
Relationship between NMS, agent, and MIB
MIB and view-based MIB access control
A MIB stores variables called "nodes" or "objects" in a tree hierarchy and identifies each node with a
unique OID. An OID is a dotted numeric string that uniquely identifies the path from the root node to a
leaf node. For example, object B in
is uniquely identified by the OID {1.2.1.1}.
Figure 52
MIB tree
