PMP Mail Archive: RE: PMP> Posted Last Call draft of Port Mo

RE: PMP> Posted Last Call draft of Port Mon MIB (10 March 2005)

From: McDonald, Ira (imcdonald@sharplabs.com)
Date: Sun Mar 13 2005 - 22:49:13 EST

  • Next message: Wijnen, Bert (Bert): "RE: PMP> Posted Last Call draft of Port Mon MIB (10 March 2005)"

    Hi Bert,

    I think we need some technical advice here about the syntax of
    SNMP community strings. You said recently (in this thread):

    "Well, there maybe broken SNMP implementation that only accept ASCII for
    community string. But I think you are now swinging the other way to
    not accept compliant SNMP implementations that DO accept non-ascii
    charatcers in community string."

    In the Printer Port Monitor MIB, I made our community string object
    have a syntax of 'DisplayString' (NVT-ASCII).

    Strangely, in the SNMP-COMMUNITY-MIB (RFC 3854), they use a syntax
    of 'OCTET STRING'. Which seems the worst of all possible worlds.
    Since the charset is completely ambiguous, it's impossible to
    display to users. Several years ago on the SNMPv3 list I argued
    (unsuccessfully) that the syntax should be 'SnmpAdminString',
    so that meaningful user display was possible. I remain unpersuaded
    that mixing charsets across an enterprise network for community
    strings can possibly ever be beneficial.

    Care to offer us some advice?

    Cheers,
    - Ira

    Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
    Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
    PO Box 221 Grand Marais, MI 49839
    phone: +1-906-494-2434
    email: imcdonald@sharplabs.com



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