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-
- Network Management Area
-
- Director(s):
-
-
- o James Davin: jrd@ptt.lcs.mit.edu
-
-
- Area Summary reported by James Davin/MIT
-
- At the Santa Fe meeting of the IETF, six working groups of the Network
- Management Area held one or more sessions throughout the week. Also,
- two Birds of a Feather sessions were held.
-
- The SNMP Network Management Directorate reviewed six MIB specifications
- that had been recently reported out of working groups. Three of these
- were products of the Character MIB Working Group: the MIB for character
- stream devices, the MIB for parallel-printer-like hardware devices, the
- MIB for RS232-like devices. Also reviewed were the IP Forwarding MIB
- produced by the Router Requirements Working Group, the Frame Relay MIB
- produced by the IPLPDN Working Group, and the SMDS Interface Protocol
- MIB produced by the SNMP Working Group. The IESG announced its
- intention to consider these MIBs as candidates for Proposed Standard
- status after final text is available in the Internet-Drafts repository.
-
- In addition, the Directorate discussed the problem of representing
- elaborate protocol stacks using the abstractions provided by the
- ``interfaces'' Group of MIB 2. The Directorate discussion was premised
- on the notion that is implicit in MIB 2 that an ``interface'' object is
- only used to represent protocol entities below the internetwork (e.g.,
- IP) layer. The problem addressed has arisen in any number of Working
- Group discussions: although the interfaces Group in MIB 2 is a
- convenient abstraction for managers, it doesn't support specific
- transmission media or elaborate protocol stacks that may involve both
- downward and upward multiplexing.
-
- The Directorate discussion came to three conclusions:
-
-
- 1. Every entry in a media-specific MIB table is paired one-to-one with
- a single entry in the interfaces table of MIB 2. The
- media-specific entry can be reached from the generic interfaces
- table entry by using information in the ifType object together with
- information in the ifIndex object.
-
- 2. Media-specific MIB table entries can (and often do) include
- ``pointer'' information that represents user-service relations
- among entities in a more or less elaborate protocol stack below the
- internetwork layer. This pointer information variously takes the
- form of OBJECT IDENTIFIER values (as in the Character MIB) or
- combinations of OBJECT IDENTIFIER and INTEGER values.
-
- 3. If every protocol entity below the internetwork layer is
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- 1
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- represented by an entry in the MIB 2 interfaces table, then all
- possible user-service relations among such entities may be
- concisely represented as a set of ordered pairs of ifIndex values.
- A simple MIB to represent such a set of ordered pairs was deemed
- desirable.
-
-
- A document presenting these conclusions in greater detail will be
- prepared as a basis for broader discussion of this problem.
-
- X.25 Management Information Base (x25mib)
-
- The Working Group met to consider three documents: one that instruments
- X.25 link-layer functionality, one that instruments X.25 layer 3
- functionality, and one that instruments convergence functions necessary
- to run IP over X.25.
-
- At this meeting, the Working Group decided that the scope of
- instrumentation in the link-layer MIB will be confined to the LAPB
- protocol. The Working Group also concluded that the objects in these
- MIBs should be reviewed for actual usefulness in managing networks and
- that some pruning or alteration in conformance posture may be desirable.
- The Working Group noted that the IPLPDN Working Group was contemplating
- a revision to RFC 877 and decided to monitor that activity to determine
- if it may warrant revision to the IP/X.25 convergence MIB. The Group
- also discussed at some length the problems of representing X.25 protocol
- stacks in MIBs and suggested that the SNMP Directorate might pay some
- attention to this problem.
-
- Remote LAN Monitoring (rmonmib)
-
- This Working Group met informally to discuss implementation experience
- with the recently published RMON MIB. At the suggestion of members who
- had attended the Birds of a Feather session on SNMP Device Discovery
- earlier in the week, the Working Group spent some time discussing ways
- in which RMON technology could be applied to the device discovery
- problem. The meeting also recommended that a new working group be
- formed to address extensions of the RMON MIB for Token Ring media.
-
- IEEE 802.3 Hub MIB (hubmib)
-
- This Working Group met to discuss the current draft of an SNMP MIB for
- 802.3 Repeater devices. The Chair reported on IEEE reaction to this
- first draft of the SNMP MIB. A presentation was made on ideas for a
- ``Chassis MIB'' that is useful in instrumenting communications products
- that encompass multiple devices. As a result of this presentation, the
- Working Group concluded that its repeater MIB need not accommodate
- multiple repeater devices as this need was better addressed by the
- notion of a Chassis MIB. The Working Group recommended that effort be
- applied to development of the Chassis MIB ideas.
-
- Internet Accounting (acct)
-
- This Working Group met in two sessions during the Santa Fe IETF meeting.
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- 2
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- The first session reviewed the Internet Accounting Background document
- (RFC 1272). Some time was spent bringing newcomers up to date with the
- Working Group's purpose and efforts. New attendees brought fresh
- perspectives and offered many comments, criticisms, and suggestions that
- will be incorporated into either a new version of the RFC or into
- follow-on documents.
-
- The second session was spent in discussion of the latest draft of the
- Internet Accounting Architecture. Although this document has existed
- for several months now and has undergone three or four extensive
- revisions, it still needs work, both in form and content. The stated
- scope of the document was tightened. The Internet Accounting model and
- its difference from the OSI accounting model was more clearly defined.
- A decision was made to combine the metering services document (formerly
- to be separate) with the architecture document. A decision was made to
- announce the Working Group's intention to produce a draft MIB document
- before its work is concluded. Discussion of the architecture document
- will continue with a view to advancing it to the status of Internet
- Draft by the next IETF conference.
-
- Simple Network Management Protocol (snmp)
-
- This Working Group met briefly in Santa Fe to conclude its business.
- The only item of outstanding business was the resolution of issues
- surrounding the Ethernet MIB. The Working Group Chair reviewed the
- course of action that had been previously discussed on the mailing list.
- With the formation of the Ethernet MIB Working Group to resolve
- outstanding issues, the SNMP Working Group adjourned and disbanded. The
- scheduled time that remained after adjournment of the SNMP Working Group
- was devoted to the first meeting of the new Ethernet MIB Group.
-
- Ethernet MIB (ethermib)
-
- The Ethernet MIB Working Group met for the first time in Santa Fe to
- begin its resolution of outstanding issues in the Ethernet MIB. The
- Working Group Charter was presented and interpreted by the Chair. The
- Working Group decided to omit from the current version of the MIB the
- language that dissociates conformance to the standard from actual
- implementation of the relevant objects. The Working Group felt that
- resolution of the issues required a more straightforward strategy that
- ties implementation requirements to particular operating environments.
- The Working Group also decided that distinctions between 802.3 and
- Ethernet environments could be a useful principle in articulating
- conformance requirements. The Group also agreed that distinctions
- between hardware and software implementations of MAC layer functions
- would also be an important consideration.
-
- SNMP MIB Compiler (mibcomp)
-
- A Birds of a Feather session on SNMP MIB Compiler technology was
- conducted by Dave Perkins of Synoptics. Dave presented his recent work
- on MIB compiler technology and explained how it could be valuable both
- in syntax checking of MIB documents and as a tool to support development
- of SNMP agents.
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- SNMP Device Discovery (devdisc)
-
- A Birds of a Feather session on SNMP Device Discovery was conducted by
- Fred Baker of ACC. Much time was spent in this session attempting
- unsuccessfully to formulate an adequate definition of the problem. The
- session articulated some ideas on how remote monitoring technology could
- be applied to the device discovery problem, and these were subsequently
- presented to the RMON MIB Working Group for its consideration.
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