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From: uri@arnor.watson.ibm.COM (Uri Blumenthal)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.dev-environ
Subject: "Strange" devices - how to deal with? (SNMP)
Message-ID: <9101022223.AA28158@arnor.watson.ibm.com>
Date: 2 Jan 91 22:23:48 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 42

Hello,
	I'd like to discuss with you one problem we have
	running SNMP.

	There are "normal" devices  (like Ethernet,  Token-Ring,
	and whatever  you yourself put into ISODE 6.7).  And of
	course when Unix boots up, it initializes them, marking
	the devices either up or down. Then SNMP can "read" the
	status of each device, and everything is OK.

	Now -  we have some "special" devices.  Example - Virtual
	Channel-to-Channel adaptor (VCTC). They are "initialized"
	only when "ifconfig" is issued for them,  and BEFORE this
	they don't even have ifnet structure allocated.  But they
	do show up on  "netstat -in"  output though,  with "none"
	in all the fields (of course).

	When SNMP hits one of those - it returns "NoSuchName" 
	on ifIndex (and it also makes sense).

	But the problem is:  our customer complains about this, 
	and they point us on SMI-MIB, which says that "ifIndex" 
	should 	be present anyway (status "mandatory").

	My question for you is: how should we deal with such 
	devices? Should we request OS manufacturer to change
	the procedure of initializing VCTC's  (so that ifnet
	will be allocated,  when the system boots up)?  Then 
	the obvious question would be -  OK, what to set all 
	those values to?  There's nothing known yet!  Or can
	we leave it as it is (i.e. ifIndex, ifOperStatus etc
	are "NoSuchName" - because there *is* no status yet:
	in order to "become" TCP/IP device  (which can be up
	or down) there must be  an "ifconfig" command issued
	first...

	What is your opinion and advice? 

	Regards,
	Uri Blumenthal		uri@ibm.com
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