Subject: [Disman] Event-MIB - request for clarifications

From: Dave Shield <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 17:26:52 +0000

I've recently been looking at the Event MIB, and whilst I've
mostly got a handle on how this works, there are a few things
that I'm not fully clear on.   I've had a look through the
mail archives without much luck, but if these issues have been
covered before, just point me to where they've been discussed.

  The points on which I'd appreciate some clarification are
the following:

a) Wildcard handling

  If mteTriggerValueID uses a "partial" wildcard, then
should the wildcard handling of corresponding mteObjectsID
and mteEventSetObject entry append the *full* instance of
the mteTriggerValueID value that matched, or just the OID
suffix added as part of the expansion?

For example, suppose I'm monitoring an interface-related
table that's indexed by ifName strings, and specify a
mteTriggerValueID of 'someObject."eth"'
(with mteTriggerValueIDWildcard set true).

Then a trigger fires, matching "eth1" (i.e. adding '1')

Should the corresponding mteObjectsID entries be specified
as 'someObject2."eth"' (and add the matching '1' suffix) or
just 'someObject2' (and add the full matching instance "eth1")

b) Updating configuration settings

  The objects in the mteTriggerTable are defined as
read-create, but the description of mteTriggerEntryStatus
states:
     "Once made active an entry may not be modified
      except to delete it."

Does that apply to the whole of that mteTriggerEntry
row, or just the mteTriggerEntryStatus?
For example, is it legitimate to adjust the frequency of
a given trigger, or does the whole row have to be deleted
and recreated?  Similarly for (e.g.) mteTriggerComment?

c)  Access control

The description of mteTriggerTargetTag states that the
mteTriggerValueID value should be retrieved using 
    "the security credentials of the requester that
     set mteTriggerEntryStatus to 'active'"

What credentials should be used if the entry wasn't
configured via SNMP (e.g. from static configuration) ?

The implication of this is that the mteOwner index string
is only used for grouping related entries together (so
that they can all be covered by a single VACM entry).

But the third paragraph of section 7 talks about mapping
this "owner index" to a securityName or groupName.  How
does this relate to the use of the requestor's security
credentials?

This is probably the area that I found least clear?
I await enlightenment.....

Dave