FAQ:Applications 02

How do I add a MIB to the tools?

Firstly,

       cp MY-MIB.txt /usr/local/share/snmp/mibs

or

       mkdir $HOME/.snmp
       mkdir $HOME/.snmp/mibs
       cp MY-MIB.txt $HOME/.snmp/mibs

And then,

       export MIBS=+MY-MIB

or alternatively:

       echo "mibs +MY-MIB" >> $HOME/.snmp/snmp.conf

Note that you need both steps. The first command copies the file defining the new MIB to a expected location for MIB files. This defaults to /usr/local/share/snmp/mibs (or PREFIX/share/snmp/mibs if the the suite was installed into a different base location). Some ready-packaged distributions (such as Linux RPM packages) may look for MIB files in a different location, such as /etc/snmp/mibs - put the new file in this directory instead. This makes it available for everyone on the system.
The tools will also look for mibs in your personal $HOME/.snmp/mibs directory, but this will only work for you.

The second command tells the tools to load in this new MIB file as well as the default set. Note that the tools do not load every MIB found in the directory - this is to avoid slowing them down excessively when there is a large collection of MIB files. If you do want the tools to load all the MIB files, set the environmental variable MIBS to the special value "ALL".

Note that the value for this variable is the name of the MIB module, not the name of the MIB file. These are typically the same (apart from the .txt suffix), but if in doubt, check the contents of the file. The value to use is the token immediately before the word DEFINITIONS at the start of the file. Of course, if you load 'ALL' mibs, then this distinction is irrelevant.

Most of the tools (apart from snmptable) will work quite happily without any MIB files at all, as long as you are prepared to work with numeric OIDs throughout. The MIB files are only used for translating between numeric and textual forms for queries and responses.
The same holds true for the agent - see the AGENT section for details.

   FAQ:Applications

1. How do I add a MIB?
2. How do I add a MIB to the tools?
3. Why can't I see anything from the agent?
4. Why doesn't the agent respond?
5. I can see the system group, but nothing else. Why?
6. Why can't I see values in the <ENTERPRISE> tree?
7. The agent worked for a while, then stopped responding. Why?
8. Requesting an object fails with "Unknown Object Identifier" Why?
9. Why do I get "noSuchName" when asking for "sysUpTime" (or similar)?
10. Why do I sometimes get "End of MIB" when walking a tree, and sometimes not?
11. How do I use SNMPv3?
12. Why can't I set any variables in the MIB?
13. Variables seem to disappear when I try to set them. Why?
14. Why can't I change sysLocation (or sysContact)?
15. I get an error when trying to set a negative value - why?
16. I get an error when trying to query a string-indexed table value - why?
17. How should I specify string-index table values?
18. How do I send traps and notifications?
19. How do I receive traps and notifications?
20. How do I receive SNNMPv1 traps?
21. Why don't I receive incoming traps?
22. My traphandler script doesn't work when run like this - why not?
23. How can the agent receive traps and notifications?
24. How big can an SNMP request (or reply) be?
25. How can I monitor my systems (disk, memory, etc)?
26. Applications complain about entries in your example 'snmp.conf' file. Why?
27. OK, what should I put in snmp.conf?
28. How do I specify IPv6 addresses in tools command line arguments?