[comp.protocols.tcp-ip] SNMP "manageability" ?!?

brown@wucs1.wustl.edu (Mike Brown) (02/12/91)

I recently learned that a major U.S. router vendor defines SNMP management
as the ability to "monitor" their equipment via SNMP and not the
configuration of the equipment via SNMP.  I believe that I understand
the security problems related to SNMP and why caution must be exercised
with the use of SNMP to configure network elements.  I still believe that
SNMP can be an effective configuration mechanism in certain networks.


My question is:  Does any router vendor support configuration via SNMP?

If you think I am naive for using SNMP to configure network elements then
please let me know...

	Regards,
	Mike Brown	Corporate Telecommunications
			Information Systems
			One Bell Center, Rm 24-V-5
			Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.
			St. Louis, MO  63101
			(314) 235-7863

barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (02/13/91)

In article <1991Feb12.042501.6758@cec1.wustl.edu> brown@wucs1.wustl.edu (Mike Brown) writes:
>My question is:  Does any router vendor support configuration via SNMP?

cisco routers appear to, although I haven't actually tried it.  When you
enable SNMP you can specify read-only or read-write on a per-community
basis, and also specify an access list to restrict addresses from which
each community name is valid.

>If you think I am naive for using SNMP to configure network elements then
>please let me know...

It's still pretty early in the network management business, and many
vendors are just starting to provide SNMP facilities.  Some have jumped in
feet first, while others are still unsure how it fits in.  For instance, I
don't think any Unix systems are yet shipping with SNMP support (luckily
there are publically-available snmpd implementations, of various levels of
quality).

By the way, I've seen a couple of SNMP posts here recently.  There is a
mailing list snmp@nisc.psi.net on which SNMP is discussed; it includes both
users and implementors.  Send mail to snmp-request@nisc.psi.net to ask to
be added.
--
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar

vaf@Valinor.Stanford.EDU (Vince Fuller) (02/14/91)

In article <1991Feb13.062435.23866@Think.COM>, barmar@think.com (Barry
Margolin) writes:

|> It's still pretty early in the network management business, and many
|> vendors are just starting to provide SNMP facilities.  Some have
jumped in
|> feet first, while others are still unsure how it fits in.  For
instance, I
|> don't think any Unix systems are yet shipping with SNMP support
(luckily
|> there are publically-available snmpd implementations, of various
levels of
|> quality).

The last part of this paragraph is no longer true - at least one Unix
vendor, DEC, is shipping an SNMP agent as a standard daemon on all
current systems (as of at least Ultrix 4.1, possibly since Ultrix 4.0).

	--Vince

ken@dali.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) (02/15/91)

In article <1991Feb13.103034@Valinor.Stanford.EDU> vaf@Valinor.Stanford.EDU (Vince Fuller) writes:
>
>The last part of this paragraph is no longer true - at least one Unix
>vendor, DEC, is shipping an SNMP agent as a standard daemon on all
>current systems (as of at least Ultrix 4.1, possibly since Ultrix 4.0).
>

IBM ships SNMP for AIX on the RS/6000's.   

--

	ken seefried iii	"Specialization is for insects."
	ken@dali.cc.gatech.edu	   - Robert A. Heinlein (1916-1988)