SNMP over IPX
draft-ietf-mpsnmp-overipx-01

Internet Draft          SNMP over IPX              August 1992

                                  SNMP over IPX

                             Tuesday August 11, 1992

                                  Steve Bostock
                                   Novell, Inc.
                                steveb@novell.com

          1. Status of this Memo

          This document is an Internet Draft.  Internet Drafts are
          working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force
          (IETF), its Areas, and its Working Groups.  Note that other
          groups may also distribute working documents as Internet
          Drafts.

          Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
          months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted
          by other documents at any time.  It is not appropriate to use
          Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other
          than as a "working draft" or "work in progress"

          Please check the 1id-abstracts.txt listing contained in the
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          nnsc.nsf.net, nic.nordu.net, ftp.nisc.sri.com, or
          munnari.oz.au to learn the current status of any Internet
          Draft.

          This draft document is being circulated for comment.  If
          consensus is reached in the IETF's "SNMP over a Multi-protocol
          Internet" working group, it will be submitted to the RFC
          editor as a Proposed Standard protocol specification.

          If published as an RFC, this document will obsolete RFC 1298.

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          2. Abstract

          This document defines a convention for encapsulating Simple
          Network Management Protocol (SNMP) [1] packets over the
          transport mechanism provided via the Internetwork Packet
          Exchange (IPX) protocol [2].

          3. Introduction

          The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) as defined in
          [1] is now used as an integral part of the network management
          framework for TCP/IP-based internets.  Together with its
          companion standards, which define the Structure of Management
          Information (SMI) [3,4], and the Management Information Base
          (MIB) [5], the SNMP has received widespread deployment in many
          operational networks running the Internet suite of protocols.

          The success of SNMP in the TCP/IP environment has led to its
          deployment in non TCP/IP-based internets. This specification
          describes the mapping of SNMP onto the Internetwork Packet
          Exchange (IPX) protocol [2] used in Novell NetWare
          environments.

          As noted in [6], the preferred mapping for SNMP is onto UDP
          [7].  As such, this specification is intended for use in
          environments where UDP transport is not available.  No aspect
          of this specification should be construed as a suggestion
          that, in a heterogeneous transport environment, a managed
          agent should support more than one mapping. Conversely,
          management stations are strongly encouraged to support
          mappings of SNMP onto all popular transports.

          4.  Mapping SNMP onto IPX

          Mapping SNMP onto IPX is straight-forward since IPX provides a
          datagram service very similar to that provided by IP/UDP.

          Although modifications have been made elsewhere in the NetWare
          protocol suite, IPX is identical to the Xerox Internet
          Datagram Protocol (IDP) [8].  The socket address space
          authority is administered by Novell.

          SNMP packets will always set the Packet Type field in the IPX
          header to 4 (i.e., Packet Exchange Packet).

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          4.1  Socket Assignments

          SNMP protocol entities will receive GetRequest-PDU,
          GetNextRequest-PDU, and SetRequest-PDU messages on socket
          36879 (Destination Socket field set to hexadecimal 900F), and
          Trap-PDU messages on socket 36880 (Destination Socket field
          set to hexadecimal 9010).

          GetResponse-PDU messages will be addressed to the IPX address
          and socket from which the corresponding GetRequest-PDU,
          GetNextRequest-PDU, or SetRequest-PDU originated.

          4.2  Traps

          When SNMP traps are sent over IPX, the agent-addr field in the
          Trap-PDU contains the IP-address "0.0.0.0".  An SNMP manager
          may ascertain the source of the trap based on information
          provided by the transport service

          4.3  Maximum Message Size

          Although SNMP does not require conformant implementations to
          accept messages whose length exceeds 484 bytes, it is
          recommended that implementations support a maximum SNMP
          message size of 546 bytes (the maximum size allowed under
          IPX).  Furthermore, this limit is the maximum packet length
          guaranteed to traverse IPX routers which do not provide
          fragmentation.  Implementors may choose to use longer packet
          lengths if the maximum is known, which depends on the
          intermediate routers and/or intermediate datalink layer
          protocols.

          4.4  SNMP Party Information

          There are occasions when it is necessary to represent a
          transport service address in a MIB.  For instance, the SNMP
          party MIB [9] uses an OBJECT IDENTIFIER to define the
          transport domain (IP, IPX, etc.) and an OCTET STRING to
          represent an address within that domain.  The following
          definitions are provided for use in such a scheme.

          RFCyyyy-MIB DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN

          IMPORTS
               experimental
                    FROM RFC1155-SMI;

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          snmpOverIpx
               OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { experimental xx }

          snmpOverIpxDomain
               OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { snmpOverIpx 1}

          -- For snmpOverIpxDomain, a TAddress is 12 octets long and
          -- comprises 3 fields, each in network-byte (high-low) order.

          -- The first field is 4 octets long and contains the network
          -- number.

          -- The next field is 6 octets long and contains the physical
          -- address of the node.  Since IPX can run over a variety of
          -- subnet architectures, the physical node address may not
          -- require all 6 octets.  As specified in [2], the physical
          -- node address will occupy the least significant portion of
          -- the field and the most significant octets should be set
          -- to zero.

          -- The last field is 2 octets long and contains the socket
          -- number.

          -- When devices are installed, they need to be configured
          -- with an initial set of SNMP parties.  The configuration
          -- of SNMP parties requires (among other things) the
          -- assignment of several  OBJECT IDENTIFIERs.  Any local
          -- network administration can obtain the delegated authority
          -- necessary to assign its own OBJECT IDENTIFIERs. However,
          -- to cater for those administrations who have not obtained
          -- the necessary authority, this document allocates a branch
          -- of the naming tree for use with the following
          -- conventions.

          initialIPXPartyId
               OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { snmpOverIpx 2 }

          -- This prefix is used in an analogous fashion as
          --
          --   initialPartyId
          --
          -- as defined in [9].  For an SNMP protocol entity residing
          -- at IPX transport address 'N', the identities of its six
          -- initial parties are formed by appending 12 sub identifiers,
          -- one sub-identifier for each octet in the IPX transport
          -- address, to
          --

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          --   initialIPXPartyId
          --
          END

          5.  Document Procurement

          This section provides contact points for procurement of
          selected documents.

          A complete description of IPX may be secured at the following
          address:

               Novell, Inc.
               122 East 1700 South
               P. O. Box 5900
               Provo, Utah 84601 USA
               800 526 5463

               Novell Part # 883-000780-001

          The specification for IDP (part of XNS) may be ordered from:

               Xerox System Institute
               475 Oakmead Parkway
               Sunnyvale, CA 94086
               Attn.: Fonda Pallone
               (415) 813-7164

          6.  Acknowledgments

          This specification was derived from RFC 1298, based on
          discussions in the IETF's "SNMP over a Multiprotocol Internet"
          working group.

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          7.  References

          [1]Case J., Fedor M., Schoffstall M., and J. Davin, "A Simple
             Network Management Protocol (SNMP)", RFC 1157, May 1990.

          [2]Novell, Inc., "NetWare System Technical Interface
             Overview", part number 883-000780-001, June 1989.

          [3]Rose M.T., McCloghrie K., "Structure and Identification of
             Management Information for TCP/IP-based Internets", RFC
             1155, May 1991.

          [4]Rose M.T., McCloghrie K., "Concise MIB Definitions", RFC
             1212, March 1991.

          [5]Rose M.T., McCloghrie K., "Management Information Base for
             Network Management of TCP/IP-based Internets", RFC 1213,
             March 1991.

          [6]Kastenholz, F., "SNMP Communications Services", RFC 1270,
             October 1991.

          [7]Postel J.B., "User Datagram Protocol", RFC 768, August
             1980.

          [8]Xerox System Integration Standard, "Internet Transport
             Protocols", XSIS 028112, Xerox Corporation, December 1981.

          [9]McCloghrie, K., Davin, J., and J. Galvin, "Definitions of
             Managed Objects for Administration of SNMP Parties", RFC
             1353, July 1992

          8.  Security Considerations

          Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

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          9. Author's Address

          Steve Bostock
          Novell, Inc.
          2180 Fortune Drive
          San Jose, CA 95131

          Phone: 408 473 8203
          Fax:   408 435 1706
          Email: steveb@novell.com

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