VARIABLES(5)							     Net-SNMP							      VARIABLES(5)

NAME

	   variables - Format of specifying variable names to SNMP tools.

DESCRIPTION

       The  syntax  and  semantics of management information in SNMP is given by the definitions of MIB objects, loaded from one or more MIB files
       (or "MIB modules").  These definitions are not strictly required for the SNMP protocol to operate correctly, but are  typically	needed	by
       SNMP client applications to display information in a meaningful manner.

       The MIB file also serves as a design document when developing an SNMP agent (or sub-agent) that provides this information, and ensures that
       client and server share a common understanding about what management information represents.

OIDs
       MIB objects are specified using Object Identifiers (OIDs), which can take a number of forms.   Note that all of the examples in	this  sec-
       tion refer to the same MIB object.

   Numeric OIDs
       The  fundamental format of an OID is a sequence of integer values (or "subidentifiers"), typically written using dots to separate the indi-
       vidual subidentifiers.
	       .1.3.6.1.2.1.1.1
       This is the format that is used within the SNMP protocol itself, in the packets that are sent over the network.

       This form of representing an OID does not require MIB files or MIB object definitions to be available.  However it does rely on the  client
       application and/or network administrator knowing what a given numeric OID refers to.  As such, it is not a particularly helpful representa-
       tion to anyone just starting out with SNMP.

       This format can be obtained by giving the command-line option -On to most Net-SNMP commands.

   Full OID path
       A similar (but somewhat more informative) format uses the same dotted list representation, but with the numeric subidentifiers replaced	by
       names, taken from the relevant MIB file(s).
	       .iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2.system.sysDescr
       This  uniquely identifies a particular MIB object (as with the numeric OID), but the list of names should hopefully give some indication as
       to what information this object represents.  However it does rely on the relevant MIB files being available (as do all formats  other  than
       the purely numeric OID).  Such OIDs also tend to be fairly long!

       This format can be obtained by giving the command-line option -Of to most Net-SNMP commands.

       A  variant of this (typically used when writing OIDs in descriptive text, rather than running programs), is to combine the name and numeric
       subidentifier:
	       .iso(1).org(3).dod(6).internet(1).mgmt(2).mib-2(1).system(1).sysDescr(1)

   Module-qualified OIDs
       An alternative way to (more-or-less) uniquely specify an OID, is to give the name of the MIB object, together with the MIB module where	it
       is defined.
	      SNMPv2-MIB::sysDescr
       MIB object names are unique within a given module, so as long as there are not two MIB modules with the same name (which is unusual, though
       not unheard of), this format specifies the desired object in a reasonably compact form.	It also makes it relatively easy to find the defi-
       nition of the MIB object.

       This  is  the  default format for displaying OIDs in Net-SNMP applications.  It can also be specified explicitly by giving the command-line
       option -OS to most Net-SNMP commands.

   Object name
       Possibly the most common form for specifying MIB objects is using the name of the object alone - without the full path or the name  of  the
       module that defines it.
	      sysDescr
       This  is by far the shortest and most convenient way to refer to a MIB object.  However the danger is that if two MIB modules each define a
       MIB object with the same name (which is perfectly legal in some circumstances), then it's not necessarily clear which MIB object  is  actu-
       ally meant.  For day-to-day use, particularly when using standard MIB objects, this is probaby safe.  But it's important to be aware of the
       potential ambiguities.

       This format can be obtained by giving the command-line option -Os to most Net-SNMP commands.

   UCD-format
       Previous versions of the code (UCD v4.x and earlier) used a simple approach to shortening the way OIDs were specified.  If the full path of
       the  OID  began	with .iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2 then this prefix was removed from the OID before displaying it.  All other OIDs were
       displayed in full.

       Similarly, if an OID was passed to the UCD library that did not begin with a dot (and wasn't in the module::name  format),  then  the  same
       prefix was prepended.   The example OID from the formats listed above would therefore be given or displayed as
	      system.sysDescr
       The  inconsistent  handling of OIDs, depending on their location within the OID tree, proved to be more trouble than it was worth, and this
       format is no longer recommended.

       The previous behaviour can be obtained by giving the command-line option -Ou (for displaying output), or -Iu (for interpreting  input  OIDs
       without a leading dot) to most Net-SNMP commands.

SEE ALSO

       snmpcmd(1)

BUGS

       The parser of the MIB files file is not expected to handle bizarre (although correct) interpretations of the ASN.1 notation.

V5.6								    08 Feb 2002 						      VARIABLES(5)