Subject: Re: snmpconf Capabilities Question

From: Jeff Case <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 11:02:53 -0400 (EDT)

>Yes, but it *is* domain specific knowledge. Two questions:

we agree, of course it is

now, to your questions

>1. What is a `base OID' of a MIB (or of the DiffServ objects)?

this is whatever oid is agreed (such as one specified anywhere in an
appropriate informational module via the usual mechanisms) that "everybody"
understands to represent the modeled capability

it does not matter what the value is, so long as all implementations
of managers and agents use the same values for the same capabilities or
sets of capabilties

>2. Who or what has to register capabilities? - Is it the PM MIB sub-agent
>   itself or has it to provide an interface that allows other sub-agents
>   to register their capabilities?
>   The latter is the only way to keep the PM MIB sub-agent independent
>   from domains and mechanisms, but it is not described at all in the
>   document.

the agent has to do it

the specification is appropriately silent about the implementation details
as there is no requirement that this be implemented as a master agent/
subagent architecture, as a monolithic agent, or otherwise -- that does
not belong in this specification

however, the way that you cite is one possible implementation mechanism
that i would elect to use with EMANATE and could be done with agent-x
and could also be done with a monolithic agent

i suspect you will agree that while we do not want to require any particular
implementation strategy in a mib document, we want to avoid specifying
something that is impossible to implement

and, given that there are at least 3 ways to implement the mib using tools
that are widely available today, i think we are in pretty good shape in
that regard

regards,
jdc