SNMP

Simple Network Management Protocol

SNMP is defined in RFC's:

  • 1157 [L1 ], SNMPv1 Protocol Data Unit (PDU) definition
  • Add SNMPv2 RFCs ...

[ Tnm/Scotty/TkInEd, MIB Smithy SDK, SilverCreek, other Tcl software, articles, ...]

BOOK How to Manage Your Network Using SNMP

BOOK Total SNMP

A recent news:comp.lang.tcl message [[email protected]] claims that built in support for SNMP is something missing from Tcl that is built in for Perl and/or Python. Is this true? The posting also lists as missing things like syslog support, Windows window events, COM support, and Expect for windows. I know this latter is in the works. He also says this kinds of support is required for System administration. CL's answer: ugh, no. That is, unless a miracle has happened, the Python and Perl stories for SNMP are not pretty.


The "Simple" in SNMP is engineering-speak. David T. Perkins has justly estimated that "the cost of developing a 'commercial grade EMS' element management system, the cost is probably $500K to $1.5M for a basic EMS." His explanation applies to challenges of application development far beyond network management, though: "Why is it so hard and expensive to develop an EMS? It is because there are really several products that you need to develop for different 'customers' that have different requirements. The customers are:

  1) the viewers of demos (at trade shows or one-on-one for
     potential customers). EMS needs to demonstrate key attributes
     of product. Doesn't need to scale. Needs to be very
     responsive and easy to move around. Standalone.
  2) so the potential customer wants to try your product in
     his lab. The EMS should ideally have 'wizards' that guide
     the initial configuration. Make basic trouble shooting easy.
     Doesn't need to scale. Standalone.
  3) Potential customer want to use in small field trial.
      (different set of attributes)
  4) Customer want to roll out. EMS now has no graphical display,
      since it needs to roll up data and provide it to an [NMS]
      that has the display. Must scale. Must be stable."

MJ - For a rudimentary SNMP parser using tcllib's asn package see SNMP parser.


What: Network Management / SNMP
Where: ftp://ftp.procplace.com/pub/tcl/sorted/packages-7.6/net/tcl_nm-1.03/tcl-nm-1.03.tar.gz ???
ftp://ftp.procplace.com/pub/tcl/sorted/packages-7.6/devel/tcl_curses.shar.gz ???
Description: An initial implementation of an API for SNMP. This is currently being reworked in the light of SNMPv2. Please check with the mail-server for current status. Send a help line to the mailserver for details of signing up for the SNMP Tcl mailing list. Also note that packages such as tcl_curses, tcl_dbm, tcl_mib, tclnm, and tcl_snmp or tk_snmp are available.
Contact the mailing list to ask for details.
Updated: 10/1998
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Mailing service daemon)

Note that ftp.procplace.com has been retired - see procplace for replacement sites.


SilverCreek has Tcl-based products:
dead link: [L2 ]
verified on 5/17/2016: [L3 ]