SNMP Proxy

A proxy is the mechanism whereby one system "fronts for" another system in responding to protocol requests. (The definition was taken from RFC1208)

SNMP Proxy operations:

  1. Forwarding SNMP requests to other SNMP entities irrespective of the specific types of the managed objects that are being accessed. Thus, a proxy forwarder application has no need of detailed definition of a MIB view.
  2. The specific features are:
    3. Transport Protocol Conversion: Providing protocol conversions from one transport mechanism to another. For example, between SNMP over UDP/IP and SNMP over other transport such as OSI, IPX, or media access control such as Ethernet Version 2 or IEEE 802.3

    SNMP Protocol Conversion: Converting management requests from one version of SNMP to another. For example, when a management station that uses SNMPv3 protocol needs to communicate with an agent that uses SNMPv1 protocol.

  3. Using caches to shield network elements from redundant queries.
  4. Implementing and enforcing changes in access control policies without a need for changes in access control facilities in existing agents.
  5. Translation of SNMP requests into operations of some non-SNMP management protocol. The management station contacts the proxy agent and indicates the identity of the non-SNMP device. The proxy agent then translates the SNMP request of the management station into the protocol supported by the non-SNMP device.
  6. Using non-SNMP methods to access SNMP data. This is done by using Server Message Block (SMB), which allows people to see SNMP agents as shared Windows resources. It maps MIB variables to text files, and SNMP tables to text, HTML and SLK files so that they can be read using text editors, web browsers and spreadsheets.

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    References and Further reading: