On mån, 2006-11-20 at 07:19 -0800, Steve Friedl wrote: > Hi folks, > > While sniffing around for information on smux today, I found that > agent/mibgroup/README.smux was really out of date. > > Though GateD may have been the impetus for smux support in ucd-snmp, > it's a dead project now: it went to closed source, and is not nearly as > functional as other routing protocol daemons such as Quagga/Zebra. > > So I decided to do a little rewriting to reduce the focus on GateD, as > well as to steer people to AgentX instead. I didn't *entirely* remove > the GateD (or ucd) mentioned out of a respect for history, but at least > this page looks like it's been superficially maintained. > > With the caveat that this is the first time I've even *touched* an smux > configuration, and that I don't really know what I'm doing, is this page > any more out-of-it than the original? > > If this is ok, I'll submit a patch in the usual manner. > > Steve > > --- > Stephen J Friedl | Security Consultant | UNIX Wizard | +1 714 544-6561 > www.unixwiz.net | Tustin, Calif. USA | Microsoft MVP | [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > #------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > [1] What is SMUX? > > SMUX is the snmp multiplexing protocol (RFC 1227). It can be used by an > snmp agent to query variables maintained by another user-level process. > > [2] Why is it relevant to net-snmp? > > The original ucd-snmp agent needed a mechanism to query statistics from > GateD. GateD has traditionally supported this functionality via SMUX. > Hence SMUX was implemented within the ucd-snmp framework to extract > routing protocol statistics from GateD. > > net-snmp continues to support smux, and many applications still use it.
Here I think a little elaboration could be in place - I am not aware of any applications other than gated/zebra/quagga that do use the SMUX protocol. > [3] What is GateD? > > GateD is the 'Gateway Daemon' which implements a variety of routing > protocols on a variety of platforms (OSes). This was formerly available > as open source, but has since been made closed and entirely un-free. > Other routing protocol daemons such a quagga (http://www.quagga.net) > support SMUX. > > [4] Can SMUX extract statistics from other user-level processes? > > Yes, the current implementation allows for the registration of any MIB > that might be registered by a SMUX peer. > > [5] How does it work? > > Assuming 'snmpd' is already up and running, when the SMUX peer comes up, > it identifies itself with an oid identifier and string password, and > registers any MIBs it would like to implement. When 'snmpd' receives > queries for these MIBs, it passes these queries to the peer. > > [6] Who implemented SMUX for ucd-snmp? > > SMUX was implemented by Rohit Dube. He had oodles of help from > ucd-snmp-coders (Dave, Niels, Wes, Simon, Felix, Leonti) and gated-people > (Acee, Feiyi, Larry, Sue). [If I missed somebody, sorry in advance and > do let me know]. Later, Nick Amato re-write the entire SMUX package so > the code today is mostly his. > > [7] How do I find out more about SMUX? > > Read the RFC and the code, mainly, but only for legacy code. > > /New/ sub-agent development should instead use the AgentX subaprotocol, > which is not only standardized (RFC 2741 + 2742), but is outright superior Strictly speaking AgentX ain't no standard yet but I still agree that it is a lot better than SMUX. > to smux in a number of important ways (handles SET requests reliably, > able to handle overlapping registrations, aware of SNMPv3 contexts, etc.) > > Only build new smux support if you have to. Very good advice. In general I agree that this is a nice enhacement to the old file. Thank you for taking the time to do the updating and sharing it with us. /MF ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Net-snmp-coders mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/net-snmp-coders
