Internet Tools

COE4310
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 SNMP is a framework for managing devices in an internet using the TCP/IP protocol
suite.
 It provides a set of fundamental operations for monitoring and maintaining an internet.
 How?
 SNMP uses the concept of manager and agent.
 A manager is usually a host that controls and monitors a set of agents, usually routers
or servers.
 SNMP is an application-level protocol in which a few manager stations control a set of
agents.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Managers and Agents

 A management station, called a manager, is a host that runs the SNMP client
program.
 A managed station, called an agent, is a router (or a host) that runs the SNMP
server program.
 Management is achieved through simple interaction between a manager and an
agent.
 The agent keeps performance information in a database. The manager has access
to the values in the database.
 The manager can fetch these values and may decide a course of action.
 The manager can also make the agent perform certain actions.
 Agents can also contribute to the management process.
 The server program running on the agent can check the environment and, if it
notices something unusual, it can send a warning message (called a trap) to the
manager.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Basically, management with SNMP is based on three basic ideas:

 A manager checks an agent by requesting information that reflects the behavior of
the agent.
 A manager forces an agent to perform a task by resetting values in the agent
database.
 An agent contributes to the management process by warning the manager of an
unusual situation.
 Components of network management on the Internet
 Management on the Internet is done through the cooperation of three protocols:
SNMP, SMI (Structure of Management Information), and MIB (Management
Information Base).
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

Role of SNMP
SNMP defines the format of the packet to be sent from a manager to an agent and
vice versa.
It also interprets the result and creates statistics.
The packets exchanged contain the object (variable) names and their status
(values). SNMP is responsible for reading and changing these values.
Role of SMI
To use SNMP, we need rules for naming objects because the objects in SNMP form a
hierarchical structure. So, part of a name can be inherited from the parent.
We also need rules to define the type of the objects.
 What types of objects are handled by SNMP?
 Can SNMP handle simple types or structured types?
 What are the sizes of these types and What is the range of these types?
 In addition, how are each of these types encoded?
SMI is a protocol that defines these rules. But, it does not define how many objects
are managed in an entity or which object uses which type.
Role of MIB
MIB define the number of objects, name them according to the rules defined by SMI,
and associate a type to each named object.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Structure of Management Information (SMI)

 The functions of SMI are:
 To name objects.
 To define the type of data that can be stored in an object.
 To show how to encode data for transmission over the network.
 SMI is a guideline for SNMP. It emphasizes three attributes to handle an object:
name, data type, and encoding method.
 Name
 SMI requires that each managed object (such as a router, a variable in a router, a
value, etc.) have a unique name.
 To name objects globally, SMI uses an object identifier, which is a hierarchical
identifier based on a tree structure.
 The tree structure starts with an unnamed root.
 Each object can be defined using a sequence of integers separated by dots.
 An object can also be defined using a sequence of textual names separated by dots.
 The integer-dot representation is used in SNMP. The name-dot notation is used by
people.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 The objects that are used in SNMP are located under the mib-2 object, so their
identifiers always start with 1.3.6.1.2.1.
 Object identifier
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Type
 The second attribute of an object is the type of data stored in it.
 SMI has two broad categories of data type: simple and structured.
 Simple Type
 The simple data types are atomic data types.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Structured Type
 By combining simple and structured data types, we can make new structured
data types.
 SMI defines two structured data types:
 Sequence: A sequence data type is a combination of simple data types, not
necessarily of the same type.
 Sequence of: A sequence of data type is a combination of simple data types all of
the same type or a combination of sequence data types all of the same type.
 a conceptual view of data types:
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Encoding Method
 SMI uses Basic Encoding Rules (BER), to encode data to be transmitted over
the network.
 BER specifies that each piece of data be encoded in triplet format: tag, length,
and value
 Encoding format
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Tag: The tag is a 1-byte field that defines the type of data .

 Length: The length field is 1 or more bytes .

 If it is 1 byte, the most significant bit must be 0. The other 7 bits define the length of the
data.
 If it is more than 1 byte, the most significant bit of the first byte must be 1. The other 7 bits
of the first byte define the number of bytes needed to define the length.
 Value: The value field codes the value of the data according to the rules defined in BER
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Example 1: INTEGER 14

 Example 2: OCTET STRING “HI” (ASCII value of H is 72 and I is 73)

 Example 3: IPAddress 131.21.14.8

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Management Information Base (MIB)

 Each agent has its own Management Information Base, which is a collection of all
the objects that the manager can manage.
 The objects in MIB are categorized under 10 different groups: system, interface,
address translation, ip, icmp, tcp, udp, egp, transmission, and snmp.
 These groups are under the mib-2 object in the object identifier tree and each group
has defined variables and/or tables.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 a brief description of some of the objects:

 sys: This object (system) defines general information about the node (system),
such as the name, location, and lifetime.
 if: This object (interface) defines information about all of the interfaces of the
node including interface number, physical address, and IP address.
 at: This object (address translation) defines the information about the ARP table.
 ip: This object defines information related to IP, such as the routing table and the
IP address.
 icmp: This object defines information related to ICMP, such as the number of
packets sent and received and total errors created.
 tcp: This object defines general information related to TCP, such as the
connection table, time-out value, number of ports, and number of packets sent
and received.
 udp: This object defines general information related to UDP, such as the number
of ports and number of packets sent and received.
 snmp: This object defines general information related to SNMP itself.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 SNMP uses both SMI and MIB in Internet network management. It uses protocol
data units (PDUs) for communication.
 SNMPv3 defines eight types of protocol data units (or PDUs): GetRequest,
GetNext- Request, GetBulkRequest, SetRequest, Response, Trap,
InformRequest, and Report.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 GetRequest: The GetRequest PDU is sent from the manager (client) to the agent
(server) to retrieve the value of a variable or a set of variables.
 GetNextRequest: The GetNextRequest PDU is sent from the manager to the
agent to retrieve the value of a variable. The retrieved value is the value of the
object following the defined ObjectId in the PDU. It is mostly used to retrieve the
values of the entries in a table.
 The manager use GetNextRequest and define the ObjectId of the table, and as a
respone the value of the first entry of the table is returned.
 GetBulkRequest: The GetBulkRequest PDU is sent from the manager to the
agent to retrieve a large amount of data. It can be used instead of multiple
GetRequest and GetNextRequest PDUs.
 SetRequest: The SetRequest PDU is sent from the manager to the agent to set
(store) a value in a variable.
 Response: The Response PDU is sent from an agent to a manager in response to
GetRequest or GetNextRequest. It contains the value(s) of the variable(s)
requested by the manager.
 Trap: The Trap PDU is sent from the agent to the manager to report an event. For
example, if the agent is rebooted, it informs the manager and reports the time of
reeboting.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 InformRequest: The InformRequest PDU is sent from one manager to another

remote manager to get the value of some variables from agents under the control
of the remote manager. The remote manager responds with a Response PDU.
 Report: The Report PDU is designed to report some types of errors between
managers. It is not yet in use.

 Format of SNMP PDUs:

*GetBulkReques
t
PDU differs
from the others
in two areas
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 PDU type: This field defines the type of the PDU.

 Request ID: This field is a sequence number used by the manager in a request
PDU and repeated by the agent in a response. It is used to match a request to a
response.
 It is used to distinguish between different requests.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Error status: This is an integer that is used only in response PDUs to show the
types of errors reported by the agent. Its value is 0 in request PDUs.

 Non-repeaters: This field is used only in GetBulkRequest and replaces the error
status field, which is empty in request PDUs.
 This tells the agent how many OIDs in the request should be treated as GetRequest
variables.
 Error index: The error index is an offset that tells the manager which variable
caused the error.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

 Max-repetition: This field is also used only in GetBulkRequest and replaces the
error index field, which is empty in request PDUs.
 This tells the agent how many GetNext operations to perform on each variable
(that is not covered by non-repeaters option) and return the values in a single
reply.
 VarBind list: This is a set of variables with the corresponding values the
manager wants to retrieve or set. The values are null in GetRequest and
GetNextRequest.

 For example: Var1 00

4-byte
 (I) A0 sequence 00 00
no. Var2 00

Var1 00
4-byte
 (II) A5 sequence 01 15
no. Var2 00