SNMP Agents

Owned by Yeok Hong Ng
Last updated: Feb 23, 2024
3 min read

This section describes the SNMP collection agents. These agents are available in real-time workflow configurations.

The SNMP Collection agents package consists of the following:

  • an SNMP Collection profile - This profile is used to import the set of Management Information Base (MIB) files that will be used to build the target UDRs. Usually, the set of MIB files is provided by the equipment vendor.
  • an SNMP OID profile - This profile is used to configure UDR types and fields to poll, as an alternative to configuring this in the SNMP Request agent itself, making the configuration available for multiple agents.
  • and two SNMP real-time agents:
    • SNMP Request agent - This agent is used for polling management data by sending queries to the devices (network elements) on the network periodically. These queries determine the behavior of the devices, for example operational status, or the data in the MIB variables of the devices. A network element is often a router or a switch, but it can be anything that is SNMP-enabled.
    • SNMP Trap agent - This agent is used to receive SNMP notifications (traps and informs), and convert them to UDRs to be processed further by the  Platform.

Overview

The following features are supported for usage of SNMP collection agents:

  • SNMPv1, v2c, and v3 are supported.  
  • The SNMP Request agent maps all SNMP ASN.1 types to corresponding UDR attribute types including:
    • INTEGER (including integer enumerations defined in MIB files)
    • COUNTER
    • COUNTER64
    • GAUGE
    • OCTET STRING (including BIT STRING)
    • OPAQUE
    • IPADDRESS
    • OBJECT IDENTIFIER
    • TIMETICKS
  • IPv4 and IPv6 protocols are supported.
  • The SNMP Trap agent supports all types of SNMP notifications: Traps (TRAPv1 and TRAPv2 PDU types) and informs.
  • The SNMP Trap agent also supports enterprise specific traps and generic traps: 
    • Cold Start
    • Warm Start
    • Link Up/Down
    • Authentication Failure
    • EGP Neighborless

Network Elements

The SNMP Request agent uses a CSV file as the input source. This file holds the list of network elements to poll. 

Extended MIB Support

If the target MIBs have any dependent MIBs, ensure that all the dependent MIBs are also loaded to avoid errors.

Prerequisites

The following lists the relevant specifications for these agents:

SNMPv1 RFC

  • RFC 1157 Simple Network Management Protocol.
  • SMIv1 RFCs also apply to all SNMPv1 entities. 
  • MIB-II RFCs also apply to all SNMPv1 agent entities.

SNMPv2 RFCs

  • RFC 1901 Introduction to Community-based SNMPv2.
  • RFC 1908 Coexistence between Version 1 and Version 2 of the Internet-standard Network Management Framework.
  • RFC 3416 Version 2 of SNMP Protocol Operations.
  • RFC 3417 Transport Mappings.

SNMPv3 RFCs

  • RFC 3410 Introduction and Applicability Statements for Internet Standard Management Framework.
  • RFC 3411 An Architecture for Describing SNMP Management Frameworks.
  • RFC 3412 Message Processing and Dispatching.
  • RFC 3413 SNMP Applications.
  • RFC 3414 User-based Security Model.
  • RFC 3415 View-based Access Control Model.
  • RFC 3416 Version 2 of SNMP Protocol Operations.
  • RFC 3417 Transport Mappings.
  • RFC 3584 Coexistence between Version 1, Version 2, and Version 3 of the Internet-standard Network Management Framework.
  • RFC 3826 The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Cipher Algorithm in the SNMP User-based Security Model.
  • RFC 5343 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Context EngineID Discovery.

Additional SNMPv3 RFCs including the Datagram Transport Layer Security RFCs (also known as DTLS or (D)TLS) are:

  • RFC 5590 Transport Subsystem for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
  • RFC 5591 Transport Security Model for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
  • RFC 5953 Transport Layer Security (TLS) Transport Model for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

SMIv1 RFCs

  • RFC 1155 Structure and Identification of Management Information for TCP/IP-based internets.
  • RFC 1212 Concise MIB Definitions.
  • RFC 1215 Convention for Defining Traps for use with the SNMP.

SMIv2 RFCs

  • RFC 2578 Structure of Management Information Version 2 (SMIv2).
  • RFC 2579 Textual Conventions for SMIv2.
  • RFC 2580 Conformance Statements for SMIv2.

MIB-II RFCs

  • RFC 1213 Management Information Base for Network Management of TCP/IP-based internets: MIB-II.
  • RFC 2863 The Interfaces Group MIB (IF).
  • RFC 3418 Management Information Base (MIB) for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
  • RFC 4001 Textual Conventions for Internet Network Addresses.
  • RFC 4022 Textual Conventions for Internet Network Addresses (TCP).
  • RFC 4113 Management Information Base for the User Datagram Protocol (UDP).
  • RFC 4292 IP Forwarding Table MIB (IP-FORWARD).
  • RFC 4293 Management Information Base for the Internet Protocol (IP).
  • RFC 4898 TCP Extended Statistics MIB (TCP-ESTATS).

The section contains the following subsections: