[SNMP4J] SNMPv3 timing information

[Peter Verthez]

Hello Frank,

I have a small question regarding SNMPv3 timing (engine boots, engine time).

We are managing an agent that does not behave entirely properly 
regarding this timing: in some cases it resets the engine time back to 
0, but without incrementing the engine boots.   What we see is that we 
as manager are then sending requests according to our knowledge of the 
engine boots/engine time, and these are - rightfully - rejected by the 
agent, because our engine time is higher than the agent's engine time.   
And the agent sends an SNMPv3 report with the usmStatsNotInTimeWindows 
variable.   This is never resolved, unless we force a cleanup in SNMP4J 
of the timing information for that agent.

Of course, the root cause (not incrementing the engine boots in the 
agent) is a bug in the agent, but there is a discussion going on in our 
team now what the proper behaviour of the manager should be.  The 
discussion is whether in such cases, since we are the non-authoritative 
engine in this exchange, the manager (and thus SNMP4J in this case) 
should automatically do a rediscovery of the engine boots/engine time.   
I couldn't immediately find an explanation in the RFCs to counter that 
argument, but it is clear that SNMP4J does not do that.

Could you explain your view on this?

Best regards,
Peter.

-- 
Peter Verthez
Systems Engineer Network Mgt.
Tel: (+32) 3 240 84 50 | Alcanet:
Fax: (+32) 3 240 84 59 | (6)2605

Alcatel-Lucent Bell NV
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