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A Seminar

Report on

Simple Network Management

Protocol
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of degree
Of Computer Science

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Introduction
The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is by far, the dominant protocol in
network management. A key reason for its widespread acceptance, besides being the chief
Internet standard for network management is its relative simplicity. Implementing SNMP
management in a networked device is far more straightforward than most other standard or
non-standard approaches to network management.

Despite that, SNMP application development has not been as simple as one would like. It
has required significant effort to develop management applications to manage the variety of
networked devices to be managed.

This situation is now changing for the better, as more SNMP tools are available. There are
also different versions of SNMP available, such as SNMP V1, SNMP V2c, and SNMP V3.
With improved tools, SNMP is poised to deliver end-to-end management for all areas of the
growing internet industry.
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What is SNMP?
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application–layer protocol defined by
the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) in RFC1157 for exchanging management information
between network devices. It is a part of Transmission Control Protocol Internet Protocol
(TCP⁄IP) protocol suite.

SNMP is one of the widely accepted protocols to manage and monitor network elements. Most
of the professional–grade network elements come with bundled SNMP agent. These agents
have to be enabled and configured to communicate with the network management system
(NMS).
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SNMP Management
SNMP management has become the dominant standardized network management scheme in
use today. The SNMP set of standards provide a framework for the definition of management
information along with a protocol for the exchange of that information. The SNMP model
assumes the existence of managers and agents.

A manager is a software module responsible for managing a part or the entire configuration
on behalf of the network management applications and users. An agent is a software module
in a managed device responsible for maintaining local management information and
delivering that information to a manager via SNMP. A management information exchange
can be initiated by the manager (via polling) or by the agent (via a trap).

Agents function as collection devices that gather and send data about the managed resource in
response to a request from the manager. UDP ports 161 and 162 are the default ports reserved
for SNMP. The agent listens for requests and replies to them over port 161 and reports
asynchronous traps on port 162, unless it is instructed to use different ports. SNMP
accommodates resources that do not implement the SNMP software by means of proxies. A
proxy is an SNMP agent that maintains information on behalf of one or more non-SNMP
devices.
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How does SNMP work?

The simple network management protocol (SNMP) use for monitoring of network-attached
devices for any conditions that warrant administrative attention. For example all of the
following devices can use SNMP for managing devices on IP networks:

1. Network router
2. Network switch
3. Printer
4. NAS server
5. ADSL ISP router / modem
6. Linux / UNIX / Windows servers
7. Workstation and more.

Administrator can find or manage network performance, solve problem or even optimize it
further. SNMP works at the Application Layer of the Internet Protocol Suite (Layer 7 of the
OSI model).
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SNMP basic components

SNMP consists of

SNMP Manager
Managed devices
SNMP agent

SNMP Manager

A manager or management system is a separate entity that is responsible to communicate w

ith the SNMP agent implemented network devices. This is typically a computer that is used
to run one or more network management systems.

SNMP Manager’s key

functions

Queries agents
Gets responses from agents
Sets variables in agents
Acknowledges asynchronous events from agents

Managed Devices

A managed device or the network element is a part of the network that requires some form
of monitoring and management

For example: Routers, Switches, servers, workstations, printers

etc.

SNMP Agent

The agent is a program that is packaged within the network element. Enabling the agent allows
it to collect the management information database from the device locally and makes it
available to the SNMP manager, when it is queried for.

SNMP agent’s key functions

Collects management information about its local environment.

Stores and retrieves management information as defined in the MIB.
Signals an event to the manager.
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Acts as a proxy for some non–SNMP manageable network node.

SNMP Architecture
To perform its monitoring services, SNMP uses a distributed architecture of management
systems and agents and several related components. Windows Server 2003 provides an
SNMP agent that is designed to be capable of interacting with any SNMP manager. The
following components are the building blocks of SNMP and the Windows Server 2003
SNMP agent:

SNMP management systems and agents

Management Information Base (MIB)

SNMP Messages

SNMP Communities

The communication process between SNMP managers and agents

The internal architecture of the Windows Server 2003 implementation of SNMP is divided into
management and agent functions, which, in some cases, overlap. The following figure
illustrates how the Windows Server 2003 SNMP structure fits into the layers of the underlying
TCP/IP protocol architecture.
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Basic commands of SNMP

The simplicity in information exchange has made the SNMP as widely accepted protocol.
The main reason being concise set of commands, here are they listed below:

GET: The GET operation is a request sent by the manager to the managed device. It
is performed to retrieve one or more values from the managed device.
GET NEXT: This operation is similar to the GET. The significant difference is that the
GET NEXT operation retrieves the value of the next OID in the MIB tree.
GET BULK: The GETBULK operation is used to retrieve voluminous data from large
MIB table.
SET: This operation is used by the managers to modify or assign the value of the
Managed device.
TRAPS: Unlike the above commands which are initiated from the SNMP Manager,
TRAPS are initiated by the Agents. It is a signal to the SNMP Manager by the Agent
on the occurrence of an event.
INFORM: This command is similar to the TRAP initiated by the Agent, additionally
INFORM includes confirmation from the SNMP manager on receiving the message.
RESPONSE: It is the command used to carry back the value(s) or signal of
actions directed by the SNMP Manager.
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BENEFITS
Implementation of an SNMP-compliant network offers significant benefits. These benefits
allow a network administrator control in managing a healthy and efficient network.

Control

The benefits of running an SNMP-compliant application include the abilities to prevent,

detect, and correct network-related issues. SNMP is easy-to-use and allows administrators the
control they need to maintain a healthy network. It provides administrators with a network
management mechanism that efficiently monitors network performance.

Popularity

SNMP is virtually supported by every enterprise network equipment manufacturer in the

world. Its centralized management system is an extremely effective and widespread solution to
network management. Because TCP/IP networks have become so popular, implementation and
compatibility have become easy.

Efficiency

SNMP also utilizes the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) to deliver packets called protocol
data units (PDUs). UDP is a quick method of transmitting data because it has low overhead
costs. Unlike TCP, UDP lacks much of the acknowledgement Features that guard against
broken transmissions.
Thus, the intermittent messages SNMP sends and the constant flow of status updates and alerts
are kept at a minimum compared to TCP.

The control network administrators have with SNMP is extremely beneficial. With it, they
are able to monitor and change network performance according to its needs. This proves vital
with growing networks.
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LIMITATIONS
As with most good things, SNMP has its drawbacks. The drawbacks found in SNMP include
the simplistic nature of its transmission protocol and its security.
Simplicity

Because SNMP uses UDP as its transmission protocol, it lacks many reliability and security
issues. UDP runs on a very rudimentary level, using only the most basic transmission segments.
While this connectionless protocol runs with fewer network resources, it does not ensure the
data is correctly received. As networks increase in size, an increase in polling may be required
to manage the system. This can increase the overhead of resources and would be inefficient.
Security

Security has been a big concern with SNMPv1 and SNMPv2. Neither provides adequate
security features such as management message authentication and encryption. With these
holes
in security, an unauthorized user could execute network management functions. Networks can be
brought to a crawl if a malicious user carries out these actions. Deficiencies such as these
have led many operations to have read-only capability. SNMPv3 addresses these issues and
provides security enhancements in this area.

ALTERNATIVE

The Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) is another alternative to network

management. Developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), CMIP
was designed to address the same problems SNMP addresses. However, CIMP takes up more
system resources and is designed to run on the ISO protocol stack.
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SNMP SECURITY
Lacks authentication. Vulnerable to the variety of security threats.
Vulnerable to masquerading, modification of information, time modifications,
message sequencing and disclosures.
Message sequence and timing modifications occurs when an entity who is unauthorized
reorders, delays, or copies and later replays a message generated by an authorized
entity.
As SNMP does not implement any authentication Set operations are not implemented
by many vendors.
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Languages of SNMP

• Structure of Management Information (SMI)

Specifies the format used for defining managed objects that are
accessed via the SNMP protocol
• Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1)
Used to define the format of SNMP messages and managed objects
(MIB modules) using an unambiguous data description format
• Basic Encoding Rules (BER)
Used to encode the SNMP messages into a format suitable for
transmission across a network
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CONCLUSION

By implementing the SNMP technology, Ingenico has again demonstrated its desire to provide
customers with the best-suited and most cost-effective solutions available. This widespread,
light protocol is easy to deploy, and allows Ingenico terminals to be integrated into an existing
SNMP environment if needed.

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