RE: Open/Closed Issues on SNMP Extended Protocol MIB

["Sharon Chisholm" <schishol@nortelnetworks.com>]

hi

Sharon> 3. We will require support of protocol operations as defined
Sharon> in RFC1905.

Juergen> So even if I have a new MIB which takes advantage of row
operations, I
Juergen> still have to implement good old arbitrary atomic sets semantics
Juergen> without an escape mechanism such as "too complex" in order to be
Juergen> compliant? So where is the win?

Well, that is why I said the issue might be need to be re-opened. If we do
decide to give the thumbs-up to implementations that don't support
traditional
sets, then there are a few ways to position it.  In order of increasing
complexity:

1) State that we require support of protocol operations as defined in
RFC1905,
   with the possible exception of set operations.

2) Have separate, possibly overlapping, views for subtrees that have
traditional
   set support and those that support row Operators

3) Have something in the SNMP Extended Protocol MIB that states that the
entity
   supports the new sets but not the old.  We had originally said we would
not
   do this though.

   We could kill two birds with one stone here since this mechanism could
also be
   used for subAgents which supported additional functionality.
   
   IANASnmpExtendedProtocol would include set, setRow, getStuff, etc.

   So, we still have snmpXProtoSystem for the entire system:
   snmpXProtoSystem OBJECT-TYPE
      SYNTAX     IANASnmpExtendedProtocol
      MAX-ACCESS read-only
      STATUS     current
      DESCRIPTION
          "The standard SNMP protocol operations supported
          by this system above and beyond basic protocol
          support."
      ::= { snmpXProtoObjects 1 }

   But, we add something to indicate additional functionality in subtrees.
   snmpXProtoSubTreeEntry OBJECT-TYPE
      SYNTAX      SnmpXProtoSubTreeEntry
      MAX-ACCESS  not-accessible
      STATUS      current
      DESCRIPTION "A SubTree protocol extensions to SNMP
      supported by SNMP entity."
      INDEX       { snmpXProtoSubTreeIndex }
      ::= { snmpXProtoSubTreeTable 1 }

   SnmpXProtoSubTreeEntry ::= SEQUENCE {
      snmpXProtoSubTreeIndex            Unsigned32,
      snmpXProtoSubTreeBranch           OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
      snmpXProtoSubTreeFeature          IANASnmpExtendedProtocol
      }

   snmpXProtoSubTreeIndex OBJECT-TYPE
      SYNTAX      Unsigned32(1..4294967295)
      MAX-ACCESS  not-accessible
      STATUS      current
      DESCRIPTION "An arbitrary index into this table."
      ::= { snmpXProtoSubTreeEntry 1 }

   snmpXProtoSubTreeBranch OBJECT-TYPE
      SYNTAX      OBJECT IDENTIFIER
      MAX-ACCESS  not-accessible
      STATUS      current
      DESCRIPTION "The OID of the SubTree tree
      which supports this additional feature."
      ::= { snmpXProtoSubTreeEntry 2 }


   snmpXProtoSubTreeFeature OBJECT-TYPE
      SYNTAX     IANASnmpExtendedProtocol
      MAX-ACCESS read-only
      STATUS     current
      DESCRIPTION
          "The standard SNMP protocol operations supported
          by this subTree above and beyond basic protocol
          support as indicated by snmpXProtoSystem."
      ::= { snmpXProtoSubTreeEntry 3 }

Sharon