SNMP

SNMP is an industry-standard framework and protocol that was originally released in 1988.

  • RFC 1065 - Structure and identification of management information for TCP/IP-based internets.

  • RFC 1066 - Management information base for network management of TCP/IP-based internets.

  • RFC 1067 - A simple network management protocol.

SNMP can be used to monitor the status of devices, make configuration changes, etc.

There are two main types of devices in SNMP:

  1. Managed Devices -> These are the devices being managed using SNMP. -> For example, network devices like routers and switches

  2. Network Management Station (NMS) -> The device/devices managing the managed devices. -> This is the SNMP 'server'.

Operations

There are three main operations used in SNMP.

  1. Managed devices can notify the NMS of events.

  1. The NMS can ask the managed devices for information about their current status.

  1. The NMS can tell the managed devices to change aspects of their configuration.

Components

  • The SNMP Manager is the software on the NMS that interacts with the management devices. It receives notifications, sends requests for information, send configuration changes, etc.

  • The SNMP Application provides an interface for the network admin to interact with. Displays alerts, statistics, charts, etc.

  • The SNMP Agent is the SNMP software running on the managed that interacts with the SNMP Manager on the NMS. It sends notification to/receives messages from the NMS.

  • The Management Information Base (MIB) is the structure that contains the variables that are managed by SNMP. Each variable is identified with an Object ID (OID). Example variables: Interface status, traffic throughput, CPU usage, temperature, etc.

OIDs

SNMP Object IDs are organized in a hierarchical structure.

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