Lecture 22: Network Management #2

Format Of MIB Entries

By convention, no object in the Internet standard MIB has a sub-identifer of zero, see next lecture. Thus, the first variable in the system group ("system OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { mib 1 }") of the MIB is: "{ system 1 }", or

1.3.6.1.2.1.1.1

The following is copied from the generic MIB description commonly found in the file "/etc/mib.txt" on Unix systems, and is the ASN.1 definition for this same MIB object:

sysDescr OBJECT-TYPE
    SYNTAX OCTET STRING
    ACCESS read-only
    STATUS mandatory
        ::= { system 1 }

NB: The value of the SNMP type (variable?) "sysDescr" is a string of text which gives the manufacturer's type designation of the managed device, and commonly some other interesting facts such as firmware version numbers and build dates. Note that the abbreviation "{ system 1 }" is commonly allowed by SNMP software, since the OID path to the MIB is normally assumed.

Lecture 22: Network Management #2

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