SNMP Manager Programmer's Guide

SNMP Manager Programmer’s Guide134249
xi
About This Manual
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers are SNMP-compliant
applications used to manage resources on systems supplied by various vendors.
Managers interact with SNMP agents in order to access Management Information Base
(MIB) objects under the control of the agents or subagents that interact with the agents.
Values of MIB objects, which describe the attributes of system resources, are retrieved
and changed by managers.
Managers may or may not reside on the same device as the agents with which they
interact. Many managers reside on workstations connected to networks providing access
to agents they need to communicate with. Manager Services, the topic of this manual,
helps you create managers that run on NonStop Kernel systems in either the Guardian
and or the Open System Services (OSS) environment. These managers can interact
with the NonStop agent that Tandem provides to manage MIB objects supported by the
NonStop agent or subagents that communicate with it. They can also interact with other
vendors’ agents residing on network devices.
Audience
This manual is for C and C++ programmers who want to create managers that run as
NonStop Kernel processes.
Programmers who have used the Epilogue Technology Corporation product called
Envoy will find most of the information in this manual very familiar. Manager Services
was developed by porting components of Envoy to the NonStop Kernel environments,
with minimal impact on the application programming interface used by managers.
Prerequisites
Effective use of this manual and Manager Services requires:
A working familiarity with the C or C++ programming language
A good understanding of programmatic interfaces that enable manager-agent
communication using interprocess communication (IPC) or network transport
protocols
Working knowledge of Guardian or OSS system calls and programming conventions
A solid grasp of SNMP concepts, especially as related to MIB object handling and
SNMP manager design
Good familiarity with the information in two SNMP Version 1 Requests for
Comments (RFCs):
RFC 1155, Structure and Identification of Management Information for TCP/IP-
Based Internets
RFC 1157, A Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)