[HN Gopher] Simple as in SMTP
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Simple as in SMTP
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2021-05-02 14:02 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (computer.rip)
 (TXT) w3m dump (computer.rip)
        
       | chousuke wrote:
       | Are there any sane solutions for managing lots of MIBs? In my
       | experience the largest pain with SNMP comes from the fact that
       | vendors usually provide their MIBs as a single huge pile of junk
       | containing some random version of all the dependencies as well,
       | with completely random file naming conventions.
       | 
       | This means that trying to use two vendors' MIBs together with eg.
       | snmptrapd basically leads to undefined behaviour when translating
       | traps. I don't know if there any way to actually tell which
       | definitions will take precedence or whether the definition is
       | correct.
       | 
       | It also doesn't help that often the trap's translation is just as
       | cryptic as the bare OID.
        
       | networkimprov wrote:
       | This is about SNMP, and says nothing about SMTP.
        
         | iso1210 wrote:
         | The link does say
         | 
         | >>> 2021-05-01 simple as in smtp
         | 
         | I suspect the idea is that neither smtp nor snmp are simple
         | when you dig down, despite the name.
         | 
         | And I'd agree with the article, mibs can be maddening
         | 
         | And for snmpv3:
         | 
         | "if you are using SNMPv3 where the authentication and
         | configuration can be amazingly, maddeningly complex for some
         | vendors."
         | 
         | Indeed
        
           | wpietri wrote:
           | That could be, but I'd rather they made the case. When SMTP
           | came out, it was indeed very simple. In college in the 1980s,
           | I could send email just by doing something like:
           | % telnet mail.umich.edu 25            MAIL FROM:
           | <william@umich.edu>            RCPT TO: <joe.blow@umich.edu>
           | DATA            From: William Pietri <william@umich.edu>
           | To: My Skeptical Friend <joe.blow@umich.edu>       Subject:
           | Who needs a mail client?            You can send email
           | without a mail client!            .
           | 
           | It's harder now, because spammers. But to me it's amazing
           | that something like has been working for nearly 40 years. For
           | perspective, it came out the same year as the Commodore 64.
           | 
           | The curious can read the inital RFC:
           | https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc821
        
             | networkimprov wrote:
             | > because spammers
             | 
             | And because cybercrime, which is now doing staggering
             | damage, much of it initiated via SMTP.
             | 
             | SMTP was designed when the Internet's topology and
             | population were vastly different, and we desperately need
             | to replace it, e.g. with TMTP from the "mnm" open source
             | project:
             | 
             | https://mnmnotmail.org/
        
       | sigg3 wrote:
       | Fun fun fun!
       | 
       | Well-written and informative.
        
       | imperialdrive wrote:
       | Did author really get the tagline wrong?
        
         | lucb1e wrote:
         | Either that, or it's some joke about SMTP and SNMP both having
         | quite a bit of complexity for both being the Simple [Something]
         | Protocol.
        
           | soneil wrote:
           | The common joke is that "simple network management protocol"
           | is four lies, so I'd assume you're in the right direction.
        
       | foreigner wrote:
       | In my experience if the designers of a technology felt the need
       | to put the words "simple" or "lightweight" in to the name, it is
       | usually the opposite.
        
         | varispeed wrote:
         | Also because they made it, it may feel "simple" to them and
         | it's "lightweight" because they cut corners...
        
         | throw0101a wrote:
         | LDAP is lightweight compared to X.500's DAP. SMTP is simple
         | (and lightweight) compared to X.400.
        
       | janci wrote:
       | Some vendors can not get even the simple SNMP right and will send
       | OIDs in wrong order in WALK, causing a standard-observing SNMP
       | client to prematurely end a subtree walk or to loop forever.
       | 
       | And the SNMP is mostly read-only, usually only basic functions
       | can be controlled (such as interface enable/disa le) but more
       | complex configuration can be only read (vlans, firewall rules,
       | etc.)
       | 
       | So really the SNMP support in datasheet means nothing.
        
         | soneil wrote:
         | My favourite is systems that exit a walk early, leaving
         | subtrees you'll never find unless you start the walk
         | specifically within that tree.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-05-02 23:02 UTC)