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 is /opt/nfast/etc/snmp/mibs/ncipher-mib.txt (Linux) or %NFAST_HOME%\etc\snmp\mibs\ncipher-mib.txt (Windows).

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 USM users.

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