SNMP Transactions Initiated by the SNMP Manager
The Oracle® Enterprise Session Border Controller (E-SBC) uses SNMP to exchange information with an SNMP agent acting as a manager using messaging initiated by the SNMP manager, or via traps, initiated by the E-SBC. Messaging initiated by the manager can be understood in terms of two types of commands:
- GETS—Transactions wherein the manager retrieves information about the device.
- SETS—Transaction wherein the manager configures the device.
The E-SBC works differently with these transactions when you configure the protocol to function using SNMPv1v2 or SNMPv3.
SNMPv1v2 Configuration
You configure the E-SBC to support manager-initiated transactions using communities.
An SNMP community is a grouping of network devices and management stations used to define where information is sent and accepted. An SNMP device or agent might belong to more than one SNMP community. SNMP community name can be used as a type of password to provide limited access for viewing and setting management information among network management systems (NMSs) that have access to this system. With this field, the SNMP agent provides trivial authentication based on the community name that is exchanged in plain text SNMP messages.
SNMP communities also include access level settings. They are used to define the access rights associated with a specific SNMP community. The Oracle® Enterprise Session Border Controller lets you define one access level: read-only. SNMP community names may be no more than 32 characters and not contain "". You can define multiple SNMP communities on a E-SBC to segregate access modes per community and NMS host.
You configure the members of an SNMP Community using IPv4, IPv6, or a combination of both in the parameter.
SNMPv3 Configuration
The primary motivation for developing SNMPv3 is to enhance SNMP data security. This enhancement comes at the cost of complexity, both with the mechanisms used for the messaging and the configuration of the agents, including the E-SBC. SNMPv3 generically introduces enhanced authentication, encryption and filtering that you must configure on the E-SBC and the managers, such as element management systems or SNMP browsers.
You configure SNMPv3 using IPv4, IPv6, or a combination of both on the E-SBC via snmp-user-entry, snmp-group-entry, and snmp-view-entry elements and parameters. In addition, you configure snmp-address-entry elements to specify the IP address of appropriate management stations. You can also further define a station as a trap receiver by configuring its snmp-address-entry with a trap-filter-level.
