Textual Conventions for SMIv2
RFC 2579

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• 01

Network Working Group                 Editors of this version:
Request for Comments: 2579                                 K. McCloghrie
STD: 58                                                    Cisco Systems
Obsoletes: 1903                                               D. Perkins
Category: Standards Track                                       SNMPinfo
                                                        J. Schoenwaelder
                                                         TU Braunschweig
                                      Authors of previous version:
                                                                 J. Case
                                                           SNMP Research
                                                           K. McCloghrie
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                                 M. Rose
                                                  First Virtual Holdings
                                                           S. Waldbusser
                                          International Network Services
                                                              April 1999

                     Textual Conventions for SMIv2

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Table of Contents

   1 Introduction ..................................................2
   1.1 A Note on Terminology .......................................2
   2 Definitions ...................................................2
   3 Mapping of the TEXTUAL-CONVENTION macro ......................20
   3.1 Mapping of the DISPLAY-HINT clause .........................21
   3.2 Mapping of the STATUS clause ...............................22
   3.3 Mapping of the DESCRIPTION clause ..........................23
   3.4 Mapping of the REFERENCE clause ............................23
   3.5 Mapping of the SYNTAX clause ...............................23
   4 Sub-typing of Textual Conventions ............................23
   5 Revising a Textual Convention Definition .....................23

McCloghrie, et al.          Standards Track                     [Page 1]



RFC 2579             Textual Conventions for SMIv2            April 1999

   6 Security Considerations ......................................24
   7 Editors' Addresses ...........................................25
   8 References ...................................................25
   9 Full Copyright Statement .....................................26

1.  Introduction

   Management information is viewed as a collection of managed objects,
   residing in a virtual information store, termed the Management
   Information Base (MIB).  Collections of related objects are defined
   in MIB modules.  These modules are written using an adapted subset of
   OSI's Abstract Syntax Notation One, ASN.1 (1988) [1], termed the
   Structure of Management Information (SMI) [2].

   When designing a MIB module, it is often useful to define new types
   similar to those defined in the SMI.  In comparison to a type defined
   in the SMI, each of these new types has a different name, a similar
   syntax, but a more precise semantics.  These newly defined types are
   termed textual conventions, and are used for the convenience of
   humans reading the MIB module.  It is the purpose of this document to
   define the initial set of textual conventions available to all MIB
   modules.

   Objects defined using a textual convention are always encoded by
   means of the rules that define their primitive type.  However,
   textual conventions often have special semantics associated with
   them.  As such, an ASN.1 macro, TEXTUAL-CONVENTION, is used to
   concisely convey the syntax and semantics of a textual convention.

1.1.  A Note on Terminology

   For the purpose of exposition, the original Structure of Management
   Information, as described in RFCs 1155 (STD 16), 1212 (STD 16), and
   RFC 1215, is termed the SMI version 1 (SMIv1).  The current version
   of the Structure of Management Information is termed SMI version 2
   (SMIv2).

2.  Definitions

SNMPv2-TC DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN

IMPORTS
    TimeTicks         FROM SNMPv2-SMI;

-- definition of textual conventions

TEXTUAL-CONVENTION MACRO ::=

McCloghrie, et al.          Standards Track                     [Page 2]



RFC 2579             Textual Conventions for SMIv2            April 1999

BEGIN
    TYPE NOTATION ::=
                  DisplayPart
                  "STATUS" Status
                  "DESCRIPTION" Text