Working with Management Information Base Variables

This section explains the working with management information base variables.

The clsnmp command is a simple Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) manager application tool that makes SNMP requests of SNMP agents.

You can add object definitions for MIB variables to the /etc/mib.defs file by using the mosy command.

You can also add object definitions for experimental MIB modules or private-enterprise-specific MIB modules to the /etc/mib.defs file. This file is created by the mosy command. You first must obtain the private MIB module from a vendor that supports those MIB variables.

Updating the /etc/mib.defs file to incorporate a vendor's private or experimental MIB object definitions can be done two ways. The first approach is to create a subfile and then concatenate that subfile to the existing MIB /etc/mib.defs file. To create the subfile for the private MIBs and update the /etc/mib.defs file, issue the following commands:


mosy -o /tmp/private.obj /tmp/private.my
cat /etc/mib.defs /tmp/private.obj > /tmp/mib.defs
cp /tmp/mib.defs /etc/mib.defs

A second approach re-creates the /etc/mib.defs file with the mosy command:


mosy -o /etc/mib.defs /usr/lpp/snmpd/smi.my \ 
/usr/lpp/snmpd/mibII.my /tmp/private.my

The MIB object groups in the private MIB object definition module may have order dependencies.

Remember the SNMP agent being queried must have these MIB variables implemented before it can return a value for the requested MIB variables.