H3C Technologies H3C WX3000E Series Wireless Switches - Manual (Page 111)

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SNMP configuration
SNMP overview
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) offers the communication rules between a management
device and the managed devices on the network; it defines a series of messages, methods and syntaxes
to implement the access and management from the management device to the managed devices. SNMP
shields the physical differences between various devices and realizes automatic management of
products from different manufacturers.
An SNMP enabled network comprises the Network Management Station (NMS) and agents.
The NMS manages agents by exchanging management information through SNMP. The NMS and
managed agents must use the same SNMP version.
Currently, SNMP agents support SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, and SNMPv3.
• SNMPv1 uses community name for authentication. Community name defines the relationship
between an SNMP NMS and an SNMP agent. SNMP packets with community names that do not
pass the authentication on the device are simply discarded. A community name plays a similar role
as a key word and can be used to control access from NMS to the agent.
• SNMPv2c uses community name for authentication. Compatible with SNMPv1, it extends the
functions of SNMPv1. SNMPv2c provides more operation modes such as GetBulk and
InformRequest; it supports more data types such as Counter64; and it provides various error codes,
thus being able to distinguish errors in more detail.
• SNMPv3 offers an authentication that is implemented with a User-Based Security Model (USM).
You can set the authentication and privacy functions. The former is used to authenticate the validity
of the sending end of the authentication packets, preventing access of illegal users; the latter is used
to encrypt packets between the NMS and agents, preventing the packets from being intercepted.
USM ensures a more secure communication between SNMP NMS and SNMP agent by
authentication with privacy.
NOTE:
For more information about SNMP, see H3C WX3000E Series Wireless Switches Switching Engine
Configuration Guide.
SNMP configuration
Configuration task list
As configurations for SNMPv3 differ substantially from those for SNMPv1 and SNMPv2c, their
configuration tasks are introduced separately as follows.