Essential SNMP

Appendix E. SNMP Support for Perl

This appendix summarizes Mike Mitchell’s SNMP_util module, which we have used in our Perl scripts throughout this book. This module is distributed with Simon Leinen’s SNMP Perl module; Mike’s module, together with Simon’s, can make SNMP programming a snap. You can get these modules from http://www.switch.ch/misc/leinen/snmp/perl/ or http://www.cpan.org.

Perl scripts need two use statements to take advantage of the SNMP Perl module:

use BER;
use SNMP_Session;

The BER and SNMP_Session modules make up the core of Simon’s package. The SNMP_util module discussed in this appendix makes using this package a little easier. It requires only one use statement:

use SNMP_util;

Mike’s package uses the other two modules, so it’s not necessary to include all three in your scripts.

MIB Management Routines

The following sections describe a set of routines for working with MIBs.

snmpmapOID( )

The MIB objects in RFC 1213 (MIB-II) and RFC 2955 (Frame Relay) are preloaded by the routines in this package. This means that you can refer to a symbolic name like sysLocation.0 rather than to its numeric OID (.1.3.6.1.2.1.1.6 ). The snmpmapOID() routine allows you to add name-OID pairs to this map. The routine is used as follows:

snmpmapOID(text, OID, [text, OID...])

All the parameters are strings. text is the textual (or symbolic) name that you want to use and OID is the numeric object ID of the object to which the name refers. A single call to this routine may specify any ...