MIB Explorer provides two kinds of table views:
1.SNMP Tables
Displays a table with rows and columns as defined in a special OBJECT-TYPE object definition whose name ends with Table by convention. The instances of a row are identified by an uniform indexing scheme that is defined by a row object definition by its INDEX clause. This index value is displayed for each row in the first column, the Index column. It has a gray background and is frozen.
2.Scalars
Displays a list of scalar object instances. Since scalar instances are always identified by a zero OID suffix ".0", there is no Index column.
If the table has a RowStatus column, the keys <INS>, <DEL>, and <Ctrl>-<INS> can be used to modify the RowStatus column of the current row.
Pressing <INS> changes the RowStatus to createAndGo(4), <Ctrl>-<INS> to createAndWait(5), and <DEL> to destroy(6).
MIB Explorer can display both kinds also in a multi-target mode. Here the same table information of one or more agents can be displayed (and compared) in a single table view. This is accomplished by appending the target address to the row indexes.
A context menu is available for each column of a SNMP table (for each row of a Scalars view) which provides additional information like the MIB object's description and its effective syntax.
In addition, the display and input format for columns with OCTET STRING syntax can be chosen. The chosen format overrides the default format chosen in the View Settings. The available formats are:
|
Format |
Description |
Sample Value Display of „aBc“ |
|---|---|---|
|
ASCII |
Plain text formatting. |
aBc |
|
Decimal |
Formats each byte as a decimal value with a dot (".") as separator. |
97.66.99 |
|
Hexadecimal |
Formats each byte as a hexadecimal value with a colon (":") as separator. |
61:42:63 |
|
Octal |
Formats each byte as a octal value with a colon (":") as separator. |
141:102:143 |
|
Binary |
Formats each byte as a binary value with a colon (":") as separator. |
1100001:1000010:1100011 |
If the view setting "Enable auto-save (restore) of column widths in Table View" is checked in Preferences, then any manual column width change will be stored for a table node and restored when it is opened again.
With the Copy... menu item, the writable cells of a row (or column in transposed view) can be copied to one or more other existing rows.
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The main tool bar contains the following elements (items marked with * are not available for scalars):
New Row (*)
Add a new row to the table. Before the new row can be inserted into the table the row's index has to be specified. You will be prompted to enter a value for each index object. The presented input fields depend on the type of the index object. For a description of the different input fields see Set Dialog.
In a multi-target table view, you need also to select the targets for which a row with the given index should be created.
Duplicate Row
Duplicates the selected row and prompts for its new index, because an index must be unique within the same agent (and context). If the table view had been opened for multi-target view, the user is also prompted for the target for which the new row should be created.
The duplicated row is not committed to the target agent. Thus it can be edited before committing it with Commit button.
Apply Filter (*)
Note: You may create a new row in the table even if its index does not match the filter criteria, but if you refresh the table contents, that row will not be displayed anymore. Also if there were rows added to the table that have not been committed (sent) to the agent yet, then those rows will be removed from the table when applying a filter. There is no undo available for applying a filter!
Restricts the requested and viewed rows in the table to those rows whose index value matches a given range. In the filter dialog you may specify a lower and/or an upper bound. If you do not want to specify a lower bound, then uncheck the "Use lower bound" check box. If you do not want to specify an upper bound, then uncheck the "Use upper bound" check box. If you want to disable the filter, then uncheck both.
Toggle Cell Delta Highlighting
Enables or disables the highlighting of cell data changes with orange background color. When the data in a cell changed after a refresh or by manually modifying its value, the cell gets a orange background instead a blue (writable column) or white background (read-only column).
Refresh
Invalidates the table contents, resets (deletes) the undo/redo history, and then retrieves the table data from the target agent. The operation can be canceled by pressing the Cancel button of the progress window.
Each GETNEXT (SNMPv1) or GETBULK (SNMPv2c/v3) PDU is filled up with column/instance OID's up to the maximum number of variable bindings per PDU as set in Preferences.
Thus, more than one PDU may be sent to the agent per row. If an agent returns a tooBig error, MIB Explorer splits the original request PDU into two PDUs and (re)sends those PDUs to the agent.
Redo
Redo last undone change.
Undo
Undo last change. The maximum number of steps that can be undone is set in MIB Explorer's Preferences.
Transpose (*)
Swaps rows and columns. This might be useful for tables with many columns.
Find
Finds the next cell in the table whose value (as displayed) matches a given regular expression (See Regular Expression Syntax ). The search starts at the current position and continues row by row from left to right.
Find Again
Finds the next cell in the table whose value (as displayed) matches the last search expression.
Replace
Note: In contrast to the Find and Find Again functions, the Replace function does not match the cell values as they are displayed, rather than it compares the search expression against the representation of a cell's value as shown by the cell editor.
Replaces occurrences of a given regular expression with a substitution (expression) in any writable cells.
Preferences
Configures whether OID values in this table are displayed with lastname and instance identifier or numerically. In addition, one can specify whether the cell tool tip should display the cells value or its type. Displaying the type is useful when modifying cells to determine the required type of a value.
Print
Open a dialog to print the table on a printer or save the output to a PDF, PCL, or PS file. Before actually printing the table, the result can be previewed on the screen. The table can be wrapped or shrunk to fit on the selected paper size.
With the refresh tool bar you specify the refresh interval in seconds and whether the Table View is periodically refreshed or not. You can either use the predefined values or enter your own value. By pressing Enter, periodically refresh starts with the given refresh interval. 0 deactivates periodical refresh.
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Start
Starts periodically refresh, if the refresh interval value is not zero (or disabled).
Pause
Stops the periodical refresh.
Monitor
Shows the time passed until the next refresh.
Export Data
By pressing the toggle button, you can specify a comma separated value (CSV) text file, an Excel (XLS), or an XML file to save the table data to whenever the table is refreshed. The CSV as well as the XLS file can be later opened by a spreadsheet application. As long as the toggle button is pressed, refreshed table data will be written or appended to the file. If a file already exists you can choose whether new data should replace existing data in the file or if the new data should be appended. If a file does not exists, then the new data will be appended. This is also the case, if the periodic refresh is enabled.
If the XLS file format has been selected as output format, data is appended sheet by sheet
The table area is composed of:
Column Labels
The column table texts are the names of the corresponding object types. If there can be identified a common prefix for all columns in a table (including its index columns), then the labels will be displayed without that common prefix.
By clicking on a column header the rows in the table are sorted on that column in ascending order. Another click on that column sorts in descending order. A third click resets sorting on that column. If the table is sorted by more than one column, the table is sorted by those columns from left to right.
Index Columns (*)
The index columns represent the index objects defined in the INDEX clause definition of a table row definition. Index columns have a gray background and are frozen (not scrolled). Index columns cannot be edited.
Read-Only Columns
Columns that cannot be edited have a white background.
Read-Write Columns
Columns that can be edited have a blue background.
The object instances are displayed and edited within the cells of the table. You may copy a range of cells to the clipboard using <Ctrl-C>. The columns of the copied cells will be separated by a <Tab> character and the rows by a newline. Cell values may also be pasted from the clipboard into writable cells (those with blue background) by pressing <Ctrl-V>.
Status Bar
Displays the active filter expression (if present) and error status messages. In addition, the progress of the current request is shown. With the Stop button 
, the current request can be canceled.
Commit
Send a series of SET requests to the target agent. For each modified cell, the cell's value is combined with the cell's OID (resulting from the column OID + index OID). OID and value together build a variable binding. For each row that has been modified, the variable bindings representing the modifications are sent as a single SET PDU to the agent. Since SNMP assures that a SET request is atomic, either all variables will be successfully set to the new values or none of the variables will be modified. Set PDUs are sent row by row, starting with the row with the lowest index value.
If a SET fails for a row, a dialog box will be shown that reports the error occurred and displays the row index of the failed row in its title. MIB Explorer will then continue to commit modifications made on following rows. If the error index is zero, all modified cells in the affected row will get a red background. If the error index is not zero, the failed cell will be marked with red background. Failed rows will not be marked as successfully committed. Thus, by committing changes again, only the modified cells of failed rows and any newly modified cells will be sent to the agent.
Commit and Verify
Same as Commit, but sends a GET request to the agent after each SET request response it receives to verify the value of the modified cells after the SET. This is particularly useful in conjunction with row creation using the RowStatus textual convention, since values set for creation remain not the same after creation.
By Row
If committing changes with this option checked all writable columns of each changed row are sent to the target within a SET request per changed row. Otherwise, only the changed columns are SET.
Close
Close the table view and abandon any changes.
The scalars table view displays all scalar MIB objects defined under the selected node in a two column list. The left column represents the object name of the corresponding scalar object and the right column contains the actual value of its instance.
To Open a Table View for Scalars:
1.Select an OBJECT-IDENTIFER node (no leaf) in the MIB tree that is the closest parent of the scalars you want to view or modify.
2.Choose Table from the node's context menu or from the Edit menu.
Modifications will be committed atomically by sending a single SET PDU. Table View
The SNMP table view displays all columnar MIB objects defined under the selected node and optionally from augmenting tables as well as other depending tables. The leftmost columns with gray background represent the index of the table. Columns with a white background are read-only.
To Open a Table View for SNMP Tables:
1.Select an OBJECT-TYPE node (no leaf) with a SYNTAX definition starting with "SEQUENCE OF". Typically, the object names of those nodes end with "Table".
2.Choose Table from the node's context menu or from the Edit menu.
If the table is augmented or extended by other tables of currently loaded MIB modules, a shuffle dialog will be displayed. You can add the tables with which you want to extend the master table from the left list to the right one. By pressing the OK button you add the columns of the tables in the right list to the table view. By pressing the Cancel button the table selected in the MIB tree is opened as it is.
MIB object instances are displayed (and edited) according to the corresponding MIB object's effective syntax:
OCTET STRING
If there is a DISPLAY-HINT format defined for the MIB object, the value has to be entered according to that format. For example, DisplayString values (format "255a") are entered as plain text.
If there is no DISPLAY-HINT defined, the value is entered as hexadecimal string, for example: "ab 8 2f 16".
For convenience, ASCII characters may be entered directly when they are enclosed by double quote characters ("). For example, if you enter '"publi"1c' this will result in the hex string '70 75 62 6c 69 1c'.
Alternative display and edit formats for string objects can be set by the context menu available for each cell. Table View
OBJECT IDENTIFIER
Whether OIDs are displayed with last name or as numeric only OIDs depends on the preferences set. To edit an OID you may enter an object name and press <Enter> to convert the name into an OID. Then any instance suffix may be appended. For example, enter "ifIndex" and press <Enter> and the displayed value will become "1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1". Now append ".2" to reference the second interface. The resulting OID ("1.3.6.1.2.1.2.2.1.1.2") can then be saved into the cell by pressing <Enter> or <Tab> again.
Enumerated INTEGER
Select one of the enumerated values from the provided list or enter an integer value to set a value not defined in the MIB.
TimeTicks, Counter32, Counter64, Unsigned32, Integer 32, INTEGER
Enter a numeric value. You can use the spin box to browse through possible values. Range restrictions defined for the MIB object are not enforced by MIB Explorer, since the agent will reject out of range values.
If there is a DISPLAY-HINT format defined for the MIB object, no spin box will be displayed and the value has to be entered according to that format.
BITS
The value may be entered as a series of '1' and '0' digits that are grouped in packets of eight bits separated by spaces. For example, to set the second, fourth, and thirteenth bits enter "01010000 00001" without quotes. Alternatively, BITS can also be entered by enumerating their names in the following form:
{ bitName1, bitName<n>, ... bitName<k> }
IpAddress, NetAddress
Either enter the IP address in raw IP address format (e.g. "192.168.0.1") or enter the host name (e.g. „www.mibexplorer.com") and press <Enter> to resolve it into a raw IP address.
Cells with white background are read-only cells. Cells with blue background can be modified. Set Dialog