[SNMP4J] SNMPv3 and virtual IP

[Roger Andersson J]

Hi,

We have a system which spans over several nodes. We want to see the system as one entity, it is just distributed over several physical nodes.
We are using a virtual IP between these nodes. Either as a load balancer or one active and the other standby if active goes down.
The SNMP manager don't know if there are just one or several nodes in the system, it uses the virtual IP to contact the system.
On all these nodes there is a SNMP agent using the virtual IP, i.e. listening for get/set requests on virtual IP and sending traps from virtual IP. Our MIB tables etc  in subagents are synchronized between all the SNMP agents.

Using SNMPv2c and the virtual IP it works fine. The manager sends the SNMP get request is sent to virtual IP and it is routed to the agent on the active node. The agent on the active node sends SNMP traps to manager. If active node changes the SNMP get is just routed to the new agent on the active node.

But using SNMPv3 and virtual IP is not as easy.
To be able to use SNMPv3 and virtual IP all agents must have the same engineID. I guess they also needs to have the same boot counter and sysUpTime.
The engineID is simple to solve if we generate it using the virtual IP. But it is ok to have the same engineID on several agents? We have a system that is distributed over several physical nodes, but it is ok to have a SNMP agent that is distributed over several physical nodes?
Boot counter can also be distributed in a quite simple way.
But how to handle the sysUptime?

Anyone who has solved a similar situation?

Regards,
Roger Andersson