1
Overview
The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is the de facto industry
standard for managing TCP/IP networks. The protocol defines the role of a
network management station (NMS) and the SNMP agent. SNMP allows remote
users on an NMS to monitor and manage network entities such as hosts, routers,
X terminals, and terminal servers.
TCP/IP Services provides support for SNMP Version 2, using the Extensible
Simple Network Management Protocol (eSNMP) architecture, under which a
single master agent can support any number of subagents. The TCP/IP Services
implementation of eSNMP includes a master agent, two subagents, an application
programming interface (API), tools used to build additional subagents, startup
and shutdown procedures, and text-based configuration files.
This chapter provides an overview of the Compaq implementation of eSNMP.
Topics include:
• eSNMP master agent and subagent architecture (Section 1.1)
• The procedure for handling SNMP requests (Section 1.2)
• The components of the TCP/IP Services software kit that implement SNMP
(Section 1.3)
• The files useful in developing your own subagent (Section 1.4)
• The eSNMP API (Section 1.5)
• The management information base (MIB) compiler (Section 1.6)
• The impact of running SNMP Version 1 subagents against the SNMP Version
2 implementation provided with TCP/IP Services (Section 1.7)
• Sources of additional information about implementing subagents (Section 1.8)
1.1 SNMP Architecture
Figure 1–1 illustrates the SNMP architecture.
Overview 1–1
