Chapter 21 Remote Management

21.14 SNMP

Simple Network Management Protocol is a protocol used for exchanging management information between network devices. SNMP is a member of the TCP/IP protocol suite. Your ZyWALL supports SNMP agent functionality, which allows a manager station to manage and monitor the ZyWALL through the network. The ZyWALL supports SNMP version one (SNMPv1). The next figure illustrates an SNMP management operation.

"SNMP is only available if TCP/IP is configured.

Figure 261 SNMP Management Model

An SNMP managed network consists of two main types of component: agents and a manager.

An agent is a management software module that resides in a managed device (the ZyWALL). An agent translates the local management information from the managed device into a form compatible with SNMP. The manager is the console through which network administrators perform network management functions. It executes applications that control and monitor managed devices.

The managed devices contain object variables/managed objects that define each piece of information to be collected about a device. Examples of variables include such as number of packets received, node port status etc. A Management Information Base (MIB) is a collection of managed objects. SNMP allows a manager and agents to communicate for the purpose of accessing these objects.

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