Ira, you are not the first person we've managed to confuse with a poorly
chosen name and an insufficiently explicit description. We should
probably rename it to the "Connector" group.
The MIB2 Interfaces group is for network interfaces. The PDM group is
for video and audio data-delivery interfaces. (Only two of them
accidentally are also network interfaces, but there's not much
network-ish about them in this application.) The group has two
purposes:
- Through which physical connector is the device currently (attempting
to) receive its video signal? Same for audio signal?
- From which physical connectors should the device look for video and
audio signals?
The only properties that these objects might share with the Interface
group are Description, maybe Type, and maybe AdminStatus. All the other
properties of Interface are for bit-byte-packet oriented interfaces,
which almost all of these *analog* gezintas are not.
To the extent that network interfaces (ethernet and wireless) might
appear here at all, the only "extension" would be something like "don't
listen to this interface for video signals." This is not very similar
to prtChannel, either: we are not planning to enable/disable individual
data paths. It's strictly physical. But neither does it turn off the
whole connector, e.g., ethernet would still carry management traffic.
This is an instruction to the video processor to listen to the gezinta
or not.
Since the network attributes are irrelevant to these connectors, and
these functions are irrelevant to the network interfaces, I don't
believe they ought to be combined.
Shared properties? The intersection of the two sets of Types is almost
empty. The AdminStatus has odd enum values that do not mesh with the
way people think about these connectors, but could be used. And
OperStatus is not reported by these devices. Not much fertile ground
here, but maybe non-zero.
If IANA has a registry of these connectors, well, I missed it. 99% of
these connectors are not Internet anything, so it's not surprising that
IANA doesn't collect them. They have a video *media* registry, but that
doesn't help much. But VESA and CEA do define these connector types,
though not quite up to the level of a formal registry. Nick is
investigating the collection of those definitions.
Seem reasonable?
rick
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pdm at pwg.org [mailto:owner-pdm at pwg.org] On Behalf Of Ira
McDonald
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 20:29
To: pdm at pwg.org; Ira McDonald
Subject: PDM> Interfaces - needs work
Hi,
Comments on PDM Interfaces group:
All SNMP Agents must implement the required groups in MIB-II (per the
core SNMP protocol specs for all three versions), including the
Interfaces group (which includes all local and network data interfaces
but NOT memory, video, etc., like the PDM group).
The PDM Interfaces group should *augment*, rather than attempt to
replace the MIB-II required group for local and network data interfaces
(802.11, 802.3 (aka Ethernet), etc.).
I'll send a more detailed suggestion after I think about it a bit more,
but we do NOT want to compete with the exstensive IANA registry of
local/network data interface types - waste of time and effort.
FWIW - Host Resources MIB (RFC 2790) treats as distinct device
types: Network, Video, Audio, Disk Storage, Parallel, and Serial (among
others).
Cheers,
- Ira
--
Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect) Chair - Linux Foundation
Open Printing WG Blue Roof Music / High North Inc PO Box 221 Grand
Marais, MI 49839
work: +1-906-494-2434
home: +1-906-494-2697
email: blueroofmusic at gmail.com