Developing An SNMP Agent

Developing an SMNP Agent using the Java Dynamic Management Kit involves four steps:

• Generating Java code by running mibgen on the target SNMP MIB.

• Filling in the get and set operations in the generated Java code.

• Configuring the SNMP adaptor.

• Registering the MIBs with the SNMP adaptor.

mibgen parses an SNMP MIB and generates the following:

• An MBean representing the whole MIB.

• A class mapping symbolic names with object identifiers.

• Classes representing SNMP groups/entries as MBeans (and the corresponding metadata class).

• Classes representing SNMP tables.

• Classes representing SNMP enumerated types.

MBeans generated by mibgen need to be updated to provide the definitive implementation.

SNMP agents developed with the Java Dynamic Management Kit are extensible in that MIBs can be added or removed during an agent's lifetime. They are open, as SNMP is not the only protocol available, and HTTP, HTML and RMI protocol adaptors can also be used to access the agent. They can be SNMP-only because the SNMP adaptor can be used alone and the MBean server is not mandatory.