Allied Telesis AT-S87 - Manual (Page 42)

Chapter 4: SNMP
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SNMP Overview
The Simple Network Management Program (SNMP) is another way for
you to manage the switch. This type of management involves viewing and
changing the management information base (MIB) objects on the device
using an SNMP application program. By default, SNMP is enabled on the
switch.
The procedures in this chapter show you how to create and manage
SNMP community strings through which your SNMP application program
at your management workstation can access the switch’s MIB objects.
To manage a switch using an SNMP application program, you must load
the Allied Telesis MIBs for the switch onto your management workstation
containing the SNMP application program. The MIBs are available from
the Allied Telesis web site at www.alliedtelesis.com.
To manage a switch using SNMP, you need to know the IP address of the
switch and at least one of the switch’s community strings. A community
string is a string of alphanumeric characters that gives you access to the
switch.
A community string has several attributes that you can use to control who
can use the string and what the string will allow a network management to
do on the switch. The community string attributes are defined below:
Community String Name
You must give the community string a name. The name can be from one
to 16 alphanumeric characters. Spaces are allowed.
Access Mode (Set)
This defines what the community string will allow a network manager to
do. There are two access modes: Read and Read/Write. A community
string with an access mode of Read can only be used to view but not
change the MIB objects on a switch. A community string with a Read/Write
access can be used to both view the MIB objects and change them.
Host Table
You can use this feature to control which management stations on your
network can use a community string. If you specify a host IP address for a
community string, then only those network managers working from
particular workstations can use it. A community string can have up to eight
IP addresses of management workstations assigned to it.
It is a good idea to assign host IP address to all community strings that
have a Read/Write access (Set) mode and then assign the IP addresses
of your management workstations to those strings. This helps reduce the
chance of someone gaining management access to a switch through a
community string and making unauthorized configuration changes.