Handling XML in SNMP

[Frank Fock]

Hello Al,

XML seems to be a real hype ;-) Of course, you may send
a XML string as an OCTET STRING. But IMHO it would
not be useful. XML is very expressive and OCTET STRINGs
cannot be longer than 64K and should be much shorter in
practice to avoid UDP packet segmentation (which itself
increases probability of packet loss).

Without a DTD or schema, XML is not any useful. So why
not writing a MIB module definition instead? A SMI
specification can then be used by HP OpenView, MIB Explorer
or any other manager to visualize the MIB data.

Best regards,
Frank

"Vasay, Al" wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I know that XML is just a regular string, but can OCTET STRING handle such
> strings? Is it possible for the Agent to return an XML string to the SNMP
> manager?  I'm thinking this is possible for GET requests.
>
> How about for SET requests in which I want to send an XML string down to the
> Agent? Is this possible also?
>
> Would managers like HP OpenView or MIB Browser allow a display of the XML?
>
> Thank you very much!
>
> Al Vasay
> Diebold, Inc.
> North Canton, OH

--
Frank Fock - AGENT++
Email: fock____agentpp.com
Fax: +49 7195 177108