SNMP monitoring agent

This appendix describes the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) monitoring agent. The SNMP monitoring agent provides you with components that you can add to your (third-party) SNMP manager application.

SNMP was developed in 1988 and revised in 1996. It is currently regarded as the standard method of network management. It is widely supported and offers greater interoperability than traditional network management tools (for example, rsh or netstat). This makes it ideal for use for the large array of platforms that we support and also avoids the overhead of remote login and execution, helping to reduce network congestion and improve performance.

SNMP defines a collection of network management functions allowing management stations to gather information from, and transmit commands to, remote machines on the network. Agents running on the remote machines can take information gathered from the system and relay this information to the manager application. Such information is either requested from the underlying operating system or gained by interrogating the hardware.

Every SNMP manager adds monitor components differently. Consult the documentation supplied with your SNMP Manager application for details on how to add the MIB files.

SNMP defines the following SNMP messages:

Message Description

get

This message is sent by a manager to retrieve the value of an object at the agent.

set

This message is sent by a manager to set the value of an object at the agent.

trap

This message is sent by an agent to notify a management station of significant events.

The SNMP monitoring agent is based on the open-source Net-SNMP project, version 5.7.3. More information on SNMP in general, and the data structures used to support SNMP installations, is available from the NET-SNMP project Web site: https://net-snmp.sourceforge.io/.

This site includes some support information and offers access to discussion e-mail lists. You can use the discussion lists to monitor subjects that might affect the operation or security of the SNMP agent or command-line utilities.

Discuss any enquiries arising from information on the NET-SNMP Web site with Support before posting potentially sensitive information to the NET-SNMP Web site.

Using the SNMP agent with a manager application

The nShield SNMP monitoring agent provides MIB files that can be added to your (third-party) SNMP manager application.

Manager configuration

The manager application is the interface through which the user is able to perform network management functions. A manager communicates with agents using SNMP primitives (get, set, trap) and is unaware of how data is retrieved from, and sent to, managed devices. This form of encapsulation creates the following:

  • The manager is hidden from all platform specific details

  • The manager can communicate with agents running on any IP-addressable machine.

As a consequence, manager applications are generic and can be bought off the shelf. You may already be running SNMP managers, and if so, you can use them to query the SNMP agent.

The manager is initially unaware of the MIB tree structure at a particular node. Managed objects can be retrieved or modified, but only if their location in the tree is known.

It is more useful if the manager can see the MIB tree present at each managed node. The MIB module descriptions for a particular node must be parsed by a manager-specific MIB compiler and converted to configuration files. These files are read by the manager application at run time.

The SNMP agent is designed to monitor all current nShield modules, working with all supported versions of nShield firmware (contact Support for details of supported firmware).

MIB module overview

A large proportion of the SNMP system is fully specified by the structure of the MIB; the behavior of the agent depends on relaying information according to the layout of the MIB.

The MIB module resides at a registered location in the MIB tree determined by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The private enterprise number of 7682 designated by the IANA corresponds to the root of the branch, and by convention this (internal) node is the company name.

The MIB module groups logically related data together, organizing itself into a classification tree, with managed objects present at leaf nodes. The nC-series node (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series) is placed as a sub-tree of the root (enterprises.nCipher); this allows future product lines to be added as additional sub-trees. The structure of the tree underneath the registered location is vendor-defined, and this specification defines the structure chosen to represent Security World Software-specific data.

The MIB file can be found in the following location:

MIB functionality

The MIB module separates module information into the following categories:

  • Retrieval of status and information about installed nC-series modules

  • Retrieval of live statistics of performance of installed nC-series modules

These categories form the top-level nodes of the sub-tree; the functionality of the first category is in the administration sub-tree, and the second category is in the statistics sub-tree. The top-level tree also contains three items that it would be useful to check at-a-glance:

Node name R/W Type Remarks

hardserverFailed

R

TruthValue

True if the remote hardserver is not running. If the hardserver is not running, then most of the rest of the information is unreliable or missing.

modulesFailed

R

TruthValue

True if any modules have failed.

load

R

Unsigned32

Percentage of total available capacity currently utilized.

Traps

The traps sub-tree (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.nC-traps) contains traps that the SNMP agent sends when certain events occur. For details on configuring traps, see

The following table gives details of the individual traps:

Node name Description

hardserverAlert

This trap is sent when the hardserver fails or is shut down.

hardserverUnAlert

This trap is sent when the hardserver restarts.

moduleAlert

This trap is sent when a module fails.

moduleUnAlert

This trap is sent when a module is restarted after a failure.

psuAlert

This trap is sent when a PSU fails.

psuUnAlert

This trap is sent when a previously-failed PSU is working again.

fanfailureAlert

This trap is sent when a fan fails.

fanfailureUnAlert

This trap is sent when a previously-failed fan is working again.

memoryUsageHighAlert

This trap is sent when the HSM memory usage high threshold has been reached or exceeded by an HSM. See section on Memory usage monitoring below for more details.

memoryUsageOkAlert

This trap is sent when the memory usage for an HSM falls below the HSM memory usage ok threshold. See section on Memory usage monitoring below for more details.
Some traps can take up to five minutes to be received.
Other generic Net-SNMP traps may also be received. These include the two below, see Net-SNMP project website for more details.
Net-SNMP trap name Description

SNMPv2-MIB::coldStart

This trap is sent when the SNMP agent is started

NET-SNMP-AGENT-MIB::nsNotifyShutdown

This trap is sent when the SNMP agent is stopped

Memory usage monitoring

The HSM memory usage thresholds and memory usage traps provide a mechanism to monitor HSM memory usage for HSMs in which the SNMP agent’s client computer are enrolled.

With memory usage monitoring enabled, there will be a memoryUsageHighAlert trap sent each time the currently in-use memoryUsageHighThreshold is reached or exceeded by an HSM.

With memory usage monitoring enabled, a memoryUsageHighAlert trap is also sent:

  • If the SNMP agent starts up and recognises that there are HSMs in a high memory usage state or,

  • If HSMs in a high memory usage state are enrolled or,

  • If the SNMP agent loses and then re-gains contact with the local hardserver which is connected to HSMs in a high memory usage state or,

  • If failed HSMs in a high memory usage state then recover.

For each of the four scenarios above, one memoryUsageHighAlert trap will be sent for each HSM in a high memory usage state.

With memory usage monitoring enabled, there will be a memoryUsageOkAlert trap sent each time the memory usage for an HSM falls below the currently in-use memoryUsageOkThreshold.

The value for memoryUsageOkThreshold is read from the snmpd.conf file on starting the SNMP agent and is used provided it contains an integer value in the range 0 to 100 (inclusive); otherwise, the default value of 0 is used. The value for memoryUsageHighThreshold is processed in the same way.

Memory usage monitoring is enabled unless the in-use values for memoryUsageOkThreshold and memoryUsageHighThreshold are both 0 or the in-use values are such that memoryUsageOkThreshold > memoryUsageHighThreshold.

For example, in snmpd.conf, if memoryUsageOkThreshold is assigned an invalid value and memoryUsageHighThreshold is assigned a valid value of say 75%, then memory usage monitoring will be enabled and the values 0% and 75% will be used respectively.

An example of memory usage monitoring by an SNMP agent on a client computer enrolled with 2 HSMs is given below:

image

Administration sub-tree overview

The administration sub-tree (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.administration) contains information about the permanent state of the hardserver and the connected modules. It is likely that most of the information in this branch rarely changes over time, unlike the statistics branch. The information given in the administration sub-tree is mostly acquired by the NewEnquiry command and is supplied both per-module and (where appropriate) aggregated over all modules.

The following table gives details of the individual nodes in the administration sub-tree:

Node name R/W Type Remarks

hardserverRunning

R

Enum

1: Running

2: NotRunning

This variable reflects the current state of the hardserver (Running or NotRunning).

noOfModules

R

Gauge32

Number of nC-series modules.

hsVersion

R

DisplayString

Hardserver version string.

globalSpeedIndex

R

Gauge32

Number of 1024-bit signatures each second.

globalminQ

R

Gauge32

Minimum recommended queue.

globalmaxQ

R

Gauge32

Maximum recommended queue.

SecurityWorld

R

TruthValue

True if a Security World is installed and operational.

swState

R

DisplayString

Security World display flags, as reported by nfkminfo.

listKeys

R/W

Integer

1: none

2: all

3: query

4: resetquery

Controls the behavior of the key table (switch off, display all keys, enable individual attribute queries, clear the query fields). Displaying all keys can result in a very long list.

serverFlags

R

DisplayString

Supported hardserver facilities (the NewEnquiry level 4 flags).

remoteServerPort

R

Gauge32

TCP port on which the hardserver is listening.

swGenTime

R

DisplayString

Security World’s generation time.

swGeneratingESN

R

DisplayString

ESN of the module that generated the Security World.

listKeys can be preset using the keytable config directive in snmpd.conf file

Security World hash sub-tree

The following table gives details of the nodes in the Security World hash sub-tree (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.administration.swHashes):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

hashKNSO

R

MHash

Hash of the Security Officer’s key.

hashKM

R

MHash

Hash of the Security World key.

hashKRA

R

MHash

Hash of the recovery authorization key.

hashKRE

R

MHash

Hash of the recovery key pair.

hashKFIPS

R

MHash

Hash of the FIPS authorization key.

hashKMC

R

MHash

Hash of the module certification key.

hashKP

R

MHash

Hash of the passphrase replacement key.

hashKNV

R

MHash

Hash of the nonvolatile memory (NVRAM) authorization key.

hashKRTC

R

MHash

Hash of the Real Time Clock authorization key.

hashKDSEE

R

MHash

Hash of the SEE Debugging authorization key.

hashKFTO

R

MHash

Hash of the Foreign Token Open authorization key.

Security World quorums sub-tree

The following table gives details of the nodes in the Security World quorums sub-tree (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.administration.swQuorums):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

adminQuorumK

R

Gauge32

The default quorum of Administrator cards.

adminQuorumN

R

Gauge32

The total number of cards in the ACS.

adminQuorumM

R

Gauge32

The quorum required for module reprogramming.

adminQuorumR

R

Gauge32

The quorum required to transfer keys for OCS replacement.

adminQuorumP

R

Gauge32

The quorum required to recover the passphrase for an Operator card.

adminQuorumNV

R

Gauge32

The quorum required to access nonvolatile memory (NVRAM).

adminQuorumRTC

R

Gauge32

The quorum required to update the Real Time Clock.

adminQuorumDSEE

R

Gauge32

The quorum required to view full SEE debug information.

adminQuorumFTO

R

Gauge32

The quorum required to use a Foreign Token Open Delegate Key.

Module administration table

The following table gives details of the nodes in the module administration table (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.administration.moduleAdminTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

moduleAdminIndex

R

Gauge32

Module number of this row in the table.

mode

R

Integer

1: Operational

2: Pre-init

3: Init

4: Pre-maint

5: Maint

6: AccelOnly

7: Failed

8: Unknown

Current module state.

fwVersion

R

DisplayString

Firmware version string.

speedIndex

R

Gauge32

Speed index (approximate number of 1024-bit modulo exponentiation operations possible per second) of module

minQ

R

Gauge32

Module minimum recommended queue length

maxQ

R

Gauge32

Module maximum recommended queue length

serialNumber

R

DisplayString

Module Electronic Serial Number (ESN).

productName

R

DisplayString

hwPosInfo

R

DisplayString

Hardware bus/slot info (such as PCI slot number).

moduleSecurityWorld

R

TruthValue

Indicates whether or not the module is in the current SW.

smartcardState

R

DisplayString

Description of smart card in slot (empty, unknown card, admin/operator card from current SW, failed). N/A for acceleration only modules.

moduleSWState

R

Integer

1: Unknown

2: Usable

3: MaintMode

4: Uninitialized

5: Factory

6: Foreign

7: AccelOnly

8: Failed

9: Unchecked

10: InitMode

11: PreInitMode

12: Unverified

13: UnusedTableEntry

Current module and Security World state.

moduleSWFlags

R

DisplayString

Security World flags for this module.

hashKML

R

MHash

Hash of the module’s secret key.

moduleFeatures

R

DisplayString

Features enabled on this module.

moduleFlags

R

DisplayString

Like serverFlags, but for each module.

versionSerial

R

Gauge32

Firmware Version Security Number (VSN); see Version Security Number (VSN).

hashKNETI

R

MHash

KNETI hash, if present.

longQ

R

Gauge32

Max. rec. long queue.

connectionStatus

R

DisplayString

Connection status (for imported modules).

connectionInfo

R

DisplayString

Connection information (for imported modules).

machineTypeSEE

R

DisplayString

SEE machine type.

Slot administration table

The following table gives details of the nodes in the slot administration table (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.administration.slotAdminTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

slotAdminModuleIndex

R

Integer32

Module number of the module containing the slot.

slotAdminSlotIndex

R

Integer32

Slot number (1-based, unlike nCore which is 0-based).

slotType

R

Integer

1: Datakey

2: Smart card

3: Emulated

4: Soft token

5: Unconnected

6: Out of range

7: Unknown

Slot type.

slotFlags

R

DisplayString

Flags referring to the contents of the slot (from slotinfo).

slotState

R

Integer

1: Unused

2: Empty

3: Blank

4: Administrator

5: Operator

6: Unidentified

7: Read error

8: Partial

9: Out of range

Partial refers to cards in a partially-created card set.

slotListFlags

R

DisplayString

Flags referring to attributes of the slot (from getslotlist).

slotShareNumber

R

Gauge32

Share number of card currently in slot, if present.

slotSharesPresent

R

DisplayString

Names of shares present in card currently in slot.

Card set administration table

The following table gives details of the nodes in the card set administration table (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.administration.cardsetAdminTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

hashKLTU

R

MHash

Hash of the token protected by the card set.

cardsetName

R

DisplayString

cardsetK

R

Gauge32

Required number of cards in the card set.

cardsetN

R

Gauge32

Total number of cards in the card set.

cardsetFlags

R

DisplayString

Other attributes of the card set.

cardsetNames

R

DisplayString

Names of individual cards, if set.

cardsetTimeout

R

Gauge32

Token time-out period, in seconds, or 0 if none.

cardsetGenTime

R

DisplayString

Generation time of card set.

Key administration table

The key administration table is visible as long as the listKeys node in the administration sub-tree is set to a value other than none.

The following table gives details of the nodes in the key administration table (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.administration.keyAdminTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

keyAppname

R

DisplayString

Application name.

keyIdent

R

DisplayString

Name of key, as generated by the application.

keyHash

R

MHash

keyRecovery

R

Integer

1: Enabled

2: Disabled

3: No key

4: Unknown

5: Invalid

6: Unset

The value unset is never returned by the key table. If you set the value unset, the keys are not filtered based on any of the attributes.

keyProtection

R

Integer

1: Module

2: Cardset

3: No key

4: Unknown

5: Invalid

6: Unset

The value unset is never returned by the key table. If you set the value unset, the keys are not filtered based on any of the attributes.

keyCardsetHash

R

MHash

Hash of the card set protecting the key, if applicable.

keyFlags

R

DisplayString

Certificate and public key flags.

keyExtraEntries

R

Gauge32

Number of extra key attributes.

keySEEInteg

R

DisplayString

SEE integrity key, if present.

keyGeneratingESN

R

DisplayString

ESN of the module that generated the key, if present.

keyTimeLimit

R

Gauge32

Time limit for the key, if set.

keyPerAuthUseLimit

R

Gauge32

Per-authentication use limit for the key.

Key query sub-tree

The key query sub-tree is used if the listKeys node in the administration sub-tree is set to query.

If these values are set, they are taken as required attributes for filtering the list of available keys; if multiple attributes are set, the filters are combined (AND rather than OR).

The following table gives details of the nodes in the key query sub-tree (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.administration.keyQuery):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

keyQueryAppname

R/W

DisplayString

Application name.

keyQueryIdent

R/W

DisplayString

Name of key, as generated by the application.

keyQueryHash

R/W

DisplayString

keyQueryRecovery

R/W

Integer

1: Enabled

2: Disabled

3: No key

4: Unknown

5: Invalid

6: Unset

The value unset is never returned by the key table. If you set the value unset, the keys are not filtered based on any of the attributes.

keyQueryProtection

R/W

Integer

1: Module

2: Cardset

3: No key

4: Unknown

5: Invalid

6: Unset

The value unset is never returned by the key table. If you set the value unset, the keys are not filtered based on any of the attributes.

keyQueryCardsetHash

R/W

DisplayString

Hash of the card set protecting the key, if applicable.

keyQueryFlags

R/W

DisplayString

Certificate and public key flags.

keyQueryExtraEntries

R/W

Gauge32

Number of extra key attributes.

keyQuerySEEInteg

R/W

DisplayString

SEE integrity key, if present.

keyQueryGeneratingESN

R/W

DisplayString

ESN of the module that generated the key, if present.

keyQueryTimeLimit

R/W

Gauge32

Time limit for the key, if set (0 for no limit).

keyQueryPerAuthUseLimit

R/W

Gauge32

Per-authentication use limit for the key (0 for no limit).

Statistics sub-tree overview

The statistics sub-tree (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.statistics) contains rapidly changing information about such topics as the state of the nShield modules, the work they are doing, and the commands being submitted.

Do not rely on information returned from the agent to change instantaneously on re-reading the value. To avoid loading the nShield module with multiple time-consuming statistics commands, the agent can choose to cache the values over a specified period. You can configure this period in the agent configuration file see

Statistics sub-tree

The following table gives details of the nodes in the statistics sub-tree, and the module statistics table (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.statistics.moduleStatsTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

moduleStatsIndex

R

Integer

Module number of this row (for moduleStatsTable).

hsuptime

R

Counter32

Uptime of the hardserver.

cmdCountAll

R

Counter32

Returned aggregated for all modules and all commands.

cmdBytesAll

R

Counter32

cmdErrorsAll

R

Counter32

Returned as for cmdCount, returned value is combined module errors added to hardserver marshalling/unmarshalling errors.

replyCountAll

R

Counter32

replyBytesAll

R

Counter32

replyErrorsAll

R

Counter32

See notes above for cmdErrors.

clientCount

R

Gauge32

maxClients

R

Counter32

deviceFails

R

Counter32

deviceRestarts

R

Counter32

outstandingCmds

R

Counter32

Total number of outstanding commands over all modules.

load[All]

R

Counter32

Module statistics table

The following table gives details of the nodes in the module statistics table (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.statistics.moduleStatsTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

moduleStatsIndex

R

Integer

Module number of this row (for moduleStatsTable).

uptime

R

Counter32

Uptime of the module.

cmdCount

R

Counter32

Returned aggregated for all commands.

cmdBytes

R

Counter32

cmdErrors

R

Counter32

Returned as for cmdCount all the different error states aggregated into one counter.

replyCount

R

Counter32

replyBytes

R

Counter32

replyErrors

R

Counter32

See notes above for cmdErrors.

loadModule

R

Counter32

loadModule

R

Counter32

objectCount

R

Gauge32

clock

R

DisplayString

Depending on the module settings, this can require KNSO permissions to read (and therefore depend on the installation parameters of the agent).

currentTemp

R

DisplayString

Character representation of the current temperature value (SNMP does not provide for a floating-point type). Only available on non-XC variants.

maxTemp

R

DisplayString

Maximum temperature the module has ever reached. Only available on non-XC variants.

nvRAMInUse

R

Gauge32

volatileRAMInUse

R

Gauge32

tempSP

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

currentCPUTemp1

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

currentCPUTemp2

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

currentFanSpeed

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

currentFanDuty

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

CPUVoltage1

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

CPUVoltage2

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

CPUVoltage3

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

CPUVoltage4

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

CPUVoltage5

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

CPUVoltage6

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

CPUVoltage7

R

DisplayString

Only available on XC variants.

CPUVoltage8

R

DisplayString

CPUVoltage8

R

DisplayString

CPUVoltage9

R

DisplayString

CPUVoltage10

R

DisplayString

CPUVoltage11

R

DisplayString

nvmFreeSpace

R

Counter32

Free space available on the HSM’s NVRAM, in bytes

Only available on XC and nShield 5 variants.

nvmWearLevel

R

DisplayString

Wear level of the HSM’s NVRAM

Only available on XC and nShield 5 variants.

nvmWornBlocks

R

DisplayString

Worn blocks in the HSM’s NVRAM

Only available on XC and nShield 5 variants.

Per connection statistics table

The following table gives details of the nodes in the per connection statistics table (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.statistics.connStatsTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

connStatsIndex

R

Integer32

Index of this entry.

connNumber

R

Integer32

Hardserver connection number.

connUptime

R

Counter32

Uptime of the connection.

connCmdCount

R

Counter32

Number of commands submitted through this connection.

connCmdBytes

R

Counter32

Number of bytes submitted through this connection.

connCmdErrors

R

Counter32

Number of marshalling errors on commands through this connection.

connReplyCount

R

Counter32

Number of replies received by this connection.

connReplyBytes

R

Counter32

Number of bytes received by this connection.

connReplyErrors

R

Counter32

Number of marshalling errors on replies through this connection.

connDevOutstanding

R

Gauge32

Number of commands outstanding on this connection.

connQOutstanding

R

Gauge32

Number of commands outstanding in the hardserver queue.

connLongOutstanding

R

Gauge32

Number of long jobs outstanding for this connection.

connRemoteIPAddress

R

IpAddress

IP Address of connection client.

connProcessID

R

Integer32

Process identifier reported by connection client.

connProcessName

R

DisplayString

Process name reported by connection client.

connObjectTotal

R

Gauge32

The total object count for a connection

Module/connection statistics table

The following table gives details of the nodes in the per module, per connection statistics table (enterprises.nCipher.nC-series.statistics.connModuleStatsTable).

Node name R/W Type Remarks

connModuleStatsConnId

R

Integer

Identity of this connection

connModuleStatsModuleIndex

R

Integer

Index of the module entry

connModuleStatsObjectCount

R

Gauge32

The object count on this module for this connection

Fan table

The fan table provides the speeds of each fan on the remote module (HSM). The following table gives details of the nodes in the fan table (enterprises.nCipher.softwareVersions.netHSMFanTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

netHSMModuleIndex

R

Integer32

Module number

netHSMFanIndex

R

Integer32

Fan number

netHSMFanSpeed

R

Gauge32

Fan speed (RPM)

Software versions table

The following table gives details of the nodes in the software versions table (enterprises.nCipher.softwareVersions.softwareVersionsTable):

Node name R/W Type Remarks

compIndex

R

Integer

Table index.

compName

R

DisplayString

Component name.

compOutput

R

Component output name

Component name.

compMajorVersion

R

Gauge

compMinorVersion

R

Gauge

compPatchVersion

R

Gauge

compRepository

R

DisplayString

Repository name.

compBuildNumber

R

Gauge

SNMP agent command-line

SNMP agent (snmpd) switches

The SNMP agent that binds to a port and awaits requests from SNMP management software is snmpd. Upon receiving a request, snmpd processes the request, collects the requested information and/or performs the requested operation(s) and returns the information to the sender.

The SNMP agent supports a limited subset of command line switches that can be specified when starting the agent.

Usage

snmpd [-h] [-v] [-f] [-a] [-d] [-V] [-P PIDFILE):] [-q] [-D] [-p NUM] [-L] [-l LOGFILE] [-r]

This command can take the following options:

Option Description

-h

This option displays a usage message.

-H

This option displays the configuration file directives that the agent understands.

-v

This option displays version information.

-f

This option specifies not forking from the calling shell.

-a

This option specifies logging addresses.

-A

This option specifies that warnings and messages should be appended to the log file rather than truncating it.

-d

This option specifies the dumping of sent and received UDP SNMP packets.

-V

This option specifies verbose display.

-P

PIDFILE This option specifies the use of a file (PIDFILE) to store the process ID.

-q

This option specifies that information be printed in a more easily parsed format (quick print).

-D

This option turns on debugging output.

-p

NUM This option specifies running on port NUM instead of the default: 161.

-c

CONFFILE This option specifies reading CONFFILE as a configuration file.

-C

This option specifies that the default configuration files not be read.

-L

This option prints warnings and messages to stdout and err.

-s

This option logs warnings/messages to syslog.

-r

This option specifies not exiting if root-only accessible files cannot be opened.

-I

[-]INITLIST This option specifies a list of MIB modules to initialize (or not). Run snmpd with the -Dmib_init option for a list.

-l

LOGFILE This option prints warnings/messages to a file LOGFILE (by default, LOGFILE=log/snmpd.log).

Using the SNMP command-line utilities

As an alternative to using an SNMP manager application, we supply several command-line utilities to test your SNMP installation and enable you to obtain information about your nShield module from the SNMP agent. These utilities support the -h (display a usage message) as described in the table above.

Utility Description

snmptest

This utility monitors and manages SNMP information.

snmpget

This utility runs a single GET request to query for SNMP information on a network entity.

snmpset

This utility runs a single SET request to set SNMP information on a network entity.

snmpgetnext

This utility runs a single GET NEXT request to query for SNMP information on a network entity.

snmptable

This utility obtains and prints an SNMP table.

snmptranslate

This utility translates SNMP object specifications into human-readable descriptions.

snmpwalk

This utility communicates with a network entity using repeated GET NEXT requests.

snmpbulkwalk

This utility communicates with a network entity using BULK requests.
These tools are general purpose SNMP utilities and are configurable for use with other SNMP agents. For more information on configuring and using these tools, refer to the NET-SNMP project Web site: http://net-snmp.sourceforge.net/.