Chapter 37 System

Figure 332 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.

SNMP itself is a simple request/response protocol based on the manager/agent model. The manager issues a request and the agent returns responses using the following protocol operations:

Get - Allows the manager to retrieve an object variable from the agent.

GetNext - Allows the manager to retrieve the next object variable from a table or list within an agent. In SNMPv1, when a manager wants to retrieve all elements of a table from an agent, it initiates a Get operation, followed by a series of GetNext operations.

Set - Allows the manager to set values for object variables within an agent.

Trap - Used by the agent to inform the manager of some events.

37.11.1Supported MIBs

The ZyWALL supports MIB II that is defined in RFC-1213 and RFC-1215. The ZyWALL also supports private MIBs (zywall.mib and zyxel-zywall-ZLD-Common.mib) to collect information about CPU and memory usage and VPN total throughput. The focus of the MIBs is to let administrators collect

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ZyWALL 110/310/1100 Series User’s Guide