RFC 1215 (rfc1215) - Page 2 of 9
Convention for defining traps for use with the SNMP
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1215 Convention for Defining Traps March 1991
information: RFC 1065, which defined the Structure of Management
Information (SMI), and RFC 1066, which defined the Management
Information Base (MIB). Both of these documents were designed so as
to be compatible with both the SNMP and the OSI network management
framework.
This strategy was quite successful in the short-term: Internet-based
network management technology was fielded, by both the research and
commercial communities, within a few months. As a result of this,
portions of the Internet community became network manageable in a
timely fashion.
As reported in RFC 1109, Report of the Second Ad Hoc Network
Management Review Group [2], the requirements of the SNMP and the OSI
network management frameworks were more different than anticipated.
As such, the requirement for compatibility between the SMI/MIB and
both frameworks was suspended. This action permitted the operational
network management framework, based on the SNMP, to respond to new
operational needs in the Internet community by producing MIB-II.
In May of 1990, the core documents were elevated to "Standard
Protocols" with "Recommended" status. As such, the Internet-standard
network management framework consists of: Structure and
Identification of Management Information for TCP/IP-based internets,
RFC 1155 [3], which describes how managed objects contained in the
MIB are defined; Management Information Base for Network Management
of TCP/IP-based internets, which describes the managed objects
contained in the MIB, RFC 1156 [4]; and, the Simple Network
Management Protocol, RFC 1157 [5], which defines the protocol used to
manage these objects.
2. Defining Traps
Due to its initial requirement to be protocol-independent, the
Internet-standard SMI does not provide a means for defining traps.
Instead, the SNMP defines a few standardized traps and provides a
means for management enterprises to transmit enterprise-specific
traps.
However, with the introduction of experimental MIBs, some of which
have a need to define experiment-specific traps, a convenient means
of defining traps is desirable. The TRAP-TYPE macro is suggested for
this purpose:
IMPORTS
ObjectName
FROM RFC 1155-SMI;
SNMP Working Group