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9 snmp, Snmp overview – PLANET FGSW-2840 User Manual

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User’s Manual of FGSW-2840 / FGSW-4840S

4.9 SNMP

SNMP Overview

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application layer protocol that facilitates the exchange of

management information between network devices. It is part of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

protocol suite. SNMP enables network administrators to manage network performance, find and solve network problems, and

plan for network growth.

An SNMP-managed network consists of three key components: Network management stations (NMSs), SNMP agents,

Management information base (MIB) and network-management protocol:

Network management stations (NMSs)

Sometimes called consoles, these devices execute management applications

that monitor and control network elements. Physically, NMSs are usually engineering workstation-caliber computers with

fast CPUs, megapixel color displays, substantial memory, and abundant disk space. At least one NMS must be present in

each managed environment.

Agents

Agents are software modules that reside in network elements. They collect and store management information

such as the number of error packets received by a network element.

Management information base (MIB)

A MIB is a collection of managed objects residing in a virtual information store.

Collections of related managed objects are defined in specific MIB modules.

network-management protocol

A management protocol is used to convey management information between agents

and NMSs. SNMP is the Internet community's de facto standard management protocol.

SNMP Operations

SNMP itself is a simple request/response protocol. NMSs can send multiple requests without receiving a response.

Get --

Allows the NMS to retrieve an object instance from the agent.

Set --

Allows the NMS to set values for object instances within an agent.

Trap --

Used by the agent to asynchronously inform the NMS of some event. The SNMPv2 trap message is designed to

replace the SNMPv1 trap message.

SNMP community

An SNMP community is the group that devices and management stations running SNMP belong to. It helps define where

information is sent. The community name is used to identify the group. A SNMP device or agent may belong to more than one

SNMP community. It will not respond to requests from management stations that do not belong to one of its communities. SNMP

default communities are:

Write

= private

Read

= public

The screen in

Figure 4-9-1

appears.

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