architecture question

[rich coco]

Ok...time to broadcast my ignorance...

 From what i have read, I had believed that, in the context of AgentX++,
the Master Agent would look to an external SNMP client like an SNMP agent.
That is, a client -- eg, "snmpget" on Linux - could be used to retrieve 
a MIB OID value
when the Master/subAgent are running.

What I imagined would happen was that the Master agent would get the 
request and
dispatch it to the appropriate subAgent. In particualr, I thought the 
Master Agent would be
listening on port 161 for SNMP client requests, pass the request to the 
subAgent using the
AgentX protocol, marshall the response from the subAgent, and pass back 
the standard SNMP
response to the client.

I succeeded in getting a MasterAgent and a single subAgent up and 
running and they do seem to
be communicating with eachother (I see the 20-sec pings sent by the 
subAgent and received by the Master).
However, when i tried out the Linux snmpget and snmpwalk commands, 
nothing happened.
Finally, I looked at the Master code and saw that by default it listens 
on port 4700 !!!

This now makes me think that I do not properly understand the role of 
the Master Agent...

Is it supposed to replace the SNMP Agent that would normally run on a 
managed device?
(which generally listens on port 161 (and 162 for traps?)?
if so, why is it listening on port 4700 by default?

thanks in advance

- rich

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