Binding the MIB MBeans

The SNMP adaptor does not interact with MBeans in the same way as the other connectors and adaptors. Because the SNMP data model relies on MIBs, only MBeans representing MIBs can be managed through SNMP. The SNMP adaptor does not interact with MBeans of a MIB through the MBean server, they must be explicitly bound to the instance of the SNMP adaptor.

After a MIB is instantiated, you must set the SnmpAdaptorName attribute of its main MBean to bind it to the SNMP adaptor. You can either call its setSnmpAdaptorName method directly or, if the MIB's MBean was registered in the MBean server, another management application may set the attribute through the MBean's exposed interface.

In the binding process, the SNMP adaptor obtains the root OID of the MIB. The adaptor uses this OID to determine which variables are implemented in the MIB's corresponding MBeans. In order for the SNMP adaptor to resolve a request on a given OID, the root OID of all bound MIBs must not overlap. This implies that no root OID may be equal to another or be a substring of another.

Even though the SNMP adaptor may be registered in the MBean server, the adaptor only makes MIBs visible to SNMP managers. Other MBeans in the agent cannot be accessed or even represented in the SNMP protocol. The SNMP manager is limited by its protocol: it cannot take full advantage of a Java Dynamic Management agent through the basic MIBs, and it does not have access to any other MBeans. In an advanced management solution, you could write a special MIB and implement it so that operations on its variables actually interact with the MBean server. This is left as an exercise for the reader.