Q-Logic MKII-BASE16 user manual Trap-Directed Polling Data Collection, Community Type Description

Managing the Switch Using SNMP

or graphical representation allowing the administrator to easily diagnose and manage the nodes and network traffic.

Additionally, agents in the managed nodes can report error conditions (such as when user-set threshold levels have been exceeded) to the network management station without waiting to be polled for the information. Using the combined approach, when a managed node agent generates a trap, the network management station can query the node for additional information.

Figure 3-16 illustrates the interaction between the SNMP management station and managed node agent for information exchange.

Link A

Link B

Switch

SNMP Agent

Provide status of Link A

and its costs

Link A: Status Up, Cost 5

ALERT! Link B Down

Mgmt Station

Figure 3-16 Trap-Directed Polling Data Collection

Community Types

Each SNMP request is signed with an identifier called an SNMP community name. Although SNMP places no restrictions on the bytes in the community name, the node agent and management station may place specific restrictions on the characters that may be used (such spaces, tabs, open square brackets, equal signs, colons, semicolons, number signs, etc.) or on the length of the string (such as, up to 32 characters). Three types of communities exist and each can have a different name.

Community Type Description

Monitor Community This community name grants read access to SNMP MIBs. For each SNMP query, the network management station must include the monitor community name in the message. By default, the monitor community name is set to “public.”

Control Community This name grants read and write access to the MIBs. Because some MIB objects are read-only, even with the correct control community name, a network management station cannot modify the variables contained in the MIB. By default, the control community is disabled so that MIBs are not modified accidentally.

3-54Switch Management	GigWorks MkII-16 Switch Model MKII-BASE16
	59003-01 Rev. A	Installer's/User's Manual