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

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

McDonald, Ira imcdonald at sharplabs.com
Sun Mar 13 22:49:13 EST 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 at sharplabs.com



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