RFC 1903 (rfc1903) - Page 2 of 23

Textual Conventions for Version 2 of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMPv2)

RFC 1903             Textual Conventions for SNMPv2         January 1996


   authentication, authorization, access control, and privacy policies.

   Management stations execute management applications which monitor and
   control managed elements.  Managed elements are devices such as
   hosts, routers, terminal servers, etc., which are monitored and
   controlled via access to their management information.

   Management information is viewed as a collection of managed objects,
   residing in a virtual information store, termed the Management
   Information Base (MIB).  Collections of related objects are defined
   in MIB modules.  These modules are written using a subset of OSI's
   Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) [1], termed the Structure of
   Management Information (SMI) [2].

   When designing a MIB module, it is often useful to define new types
   similar to those defined in the SMI.  In comparison to a type defined
   in the SMI, each of these new types has a different name, a similar
   syntax, but a more precise semantics.  These newly defined types are
   termed textual conventions, and are used for the convenience of
   humans reading the MIB module.  It is the purpose of this document to
   define the initial set of textual conventions available to all MIB
   modules.

   Objects defined using a textual convention are always encoded by
   means of the rules that define their primitive type.  However,
   textual conventions often have special semantics associated with
   them.  As such, an ASN.1 macro, TEXTUAL-CONVENTION, is used to
   concisely convey the syntax and semantics of a textual convention.

   For all textual conventions defined in an information module, the
   name shall be unique and mnemonic, and shall not exceed 64 characters
   in length.  (However, names longer than 32 characters are not
   recommended.) All names used for the textual conventions defined in
   all "standard" information modules shall be unique.

1.1.  A Note on Terminology

   For the purpose of exposition, the original Internet-standard Network
   Management Framework, as described in RFCs 1155 (STD 16), 1157 (STD
   15), and 1212 (STD 16), is termed the SNMP version 1 framework
   (SNMPv1).  The current framework is termed the SNMP version 2
   framework (SNMPv2).









SNMPv2 Working Group        Standards Track