Where to begin with SNMP agent implementation? - snmp

before I start I realise there are a few SNMP related questions here already but not many seem to have been answered - that could mean I'm asking in the wrong place but I don't know where else to go at the moment.
I've been reading up as best I can on SNMP for a couple of days but am finding it difficult to get my head around what is meant to be happening. The idea is eventually we will integrate SNMP into our Java application server which will allow the end users to incorporate it into their pre-existing Network Management Systems(NMS).
Unfortunately I'm feeling entirely confused by what is meant to be going on. From what I understood from talking to the end users (which was unfortunately before any research) was that the monitoring allows their existing NMS to give their admin guys a view of the vital statistics in a tree type display, giving them feedback regarding different parts of the system at a high level and allowing them to dig down into specific subsystems.
From reading around we would implement an 'Agent' which has several defined interfaces allowing for GET requests etc to be processed and responded to. That makes sense but I am at a loss to work out what the format of the communication is - there don't seem to be any specific examples of what any of the messages look like, how the information is encoded.
More of my confusion though is regarding Management Information Base(MIB). I had, wrongly, assumed that the interface of the agent would allow for the monitored attributes to be requested and then in turn the values for those attributes requested. Allowing any new Agent to be started and detected without any configuration on the NMS end (with the exception of authentication in v3). This, if I understand correctly, is not the case and the Agent must instead define MIBs which can be used by the NMS to determine those attributes. My confusion is increased when people start referring to thousands of existing MIBs and that they can be reused which I don't understand. Is the intention that a single MIB definition can be used to say describe how a particular attribute of a network device (something simple like internet connected on a router:yes/no) for many different devices? If so I don't believe that our software would allow the monitoring of anything common to any other device/system but should we be looking for already exising MIBs? At the moment I don't really see any good rational for such a system, surely it would be easier for the Agent to export that information - so I'd appreciate it if someone could enlighten me!
I think it would help if I was able to setup a simple SNMP agent and some sort of client, I could begin to see the process and eventually inspect the communication between the two but am finding it difficult to find anywhere that provides any information on doing such a thing. Nagios has been recommended to us as a test 'client'/NMS but their 'get started quick' section recommends downloading a 600Mb virtual machine - surely there is a quicker way to get started?
Any help or suggestions will be appreciated, I have been through the Wiki page but it doesn't seem to go into much detail about the MIBs and the having not had to deal with anything like the referenced RFCs before, while they may contain all of the information they seem completely impenetrable to me at the moment. Or if there are any books that can be recommended for an overview and implementation of v3?
Thanks for reading and even more thanks if you think you can help!

It seems to me that you read all SNMP information piece by piece in an disorganized way. This is highly not recommended and of course lead you to confusion.
What about forgetting what you have learnt so far and dive into a good book such as Essential SNMP?
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596008406.do
Click the Google Preview icon to preview it please.
You could not depend on a network forum to tell you the ABCs, as that's impractical I find out.

The communications interface is SNMP. That's the protocol used for transmission (usually on top of UDP). The thing that services information requests is an SNMP Agent. The thing that sends information requests is an SNMP Manager.
The definition of what information should be made available by the Agent, and requested by the Manager, goes in a MIB. A MIB is the "glue", a directory of what sort of things any particular system can/should offer. It maps numeric codes to names and types that allow us to make sense of the data, much like how a phone directory maps phone numbers to people's names and addresses.
Generally you would create and ship and use your own MIBs that can describe aspects specific to your own product, but you are supposed to service some standard information requests as well, which are defined in existing MIBs. Yes there are thousands of other pre-existing MIBs and the likelihood that you need more than one or two of these is remote. They are typically published versions of MIBs for existing products.
The conventional way to "toy around" is to install Net-SNMP (a software suite that includes an agent implementation and allows you to "bolt on" your own logic and your own MIBs fairly easily) then examine the results using a packet capturer like Wireshark.
For a fuller implementation in production you may stick with Net-SNMP, or write your own Agent software, or do what I did and create a hybrid of the two that's a little more flexible and performant but uses Net-SNMP's backend for handling all the low-level SNMP stuff.
Your first step, though, is to read a book or some other teaching material that can clear all your misconceptions, because guesswork won't cut it.

I had success using the samples from this page. Both the shell and Perl NetSNMP code was very straightforward to implement and query.

Related

Reading, interpreting and exporting SNMP messages

I'm trying to wrap my head around how to use SNMP in my networks. It's for industrial applications, networks with 200-800 IPs, but many quirks and security layers.
What I'd like to do is catch any traps, and periodically read parameters, over SNMP for all my network equipment. It will be sent to an external system for storage and viewing.
I understand now that even though my equipment uses the SNMP standards, the same OIDs can sometimes mean different things, and I then have to get all the MIB files from the vendors.
I find many parsers that can give me information from within the MIBs, but what I need is a whole system for importing MIBs, adding them to some kind of library, and for me to know which devices are currently supported by my library. Then, when I receive a message, I need the system to figure out what equipment has sent that, look up the correct info from the MIB and construct an alarm message based on that.
Is there any solution today that can take a list of IPs and send SNMP-get messages to all of those?
Do I need any setup just to receive SNMP traps, or will they just be
attempted delivered at the specified IP address, and I need only to
listen at the correct port?
Is there any way to parse all those MIBs and turn them into a manageable library?
How do I associate the devices with the info from the MIBs, so I interpret the information correctly?
I want to make a general solution for this, so I can expand it to more devices and vendors easily later. Below is a sketch of how a typical network would look like, but of course with a lot more components in real life. Hope someone has some good input.

Would it be valid to use external libraries for standardized protocols (MIME) as a part of the domain model?

I am currently developing an application that parses and manipulates MIME messages wherein these messages are a central part of the domain model. Although I have already implemented the required functionality, for the moment, for parsing these messages, it seems unnecessary trying to reinvent the wheel would I need to add additional MIME features in the future. I could simply use an available library such as MimeKit which probably does the job much more efficiently and seems like the more robust way to go with. At the same time I feel hesitant to this idea for a couple of reasons:
I am fairly new to software architecture but what from what I've gathered online the consensus seems to be that the domain objects should not have any external dependencies since they model a domain that is specific to the business. And so if the business rules change it wouldn't be a good idea to have your domain model be dependent of an external library. However, since MIME is a standardized protocol this shouldn't be a problem, but that leads to the second point.
Although MIME is a standardized protocol, it has come to my knowledge that the clients from which my application receives these messages does not always fully conform to the RFC specifications. I have yet to come across a problem regarding the MIME format of the messages but with that in mind I feel as though there's no guarantee that I won't stumble across problems down the line.
I might have to add additional custom functionality regarding the parsing of the messages. This could however be solved by adding that functionality on top of the imported classes.
So my questions are:
Would it under normal circumstances be a valid alternative to use an external library for standardized protocols as a part of the domain model? It doesn't seem right to sully my domain- and application-layer with external dependencies.
How should I go about this problem with regards to my circumstances? Should I create an interface for the domain model so that I can swap it out with another implementation if needed in the future? This would require isolating the external dependencies in a class and mapping all the data to fit the contracts for the application layer which almost seems like more work than implementing the protocol myself. Or should I just implement it myself and add new features successively just to make sure that I have full control of the domain model?
I would highly appreciate your input.
Your entire question boils down to the following flawed thinking:
I am fairly new to software architecture but what from what I've gathered online the consensus seems to be...
Why let consensus make your decisions for you?
Who are these people who make up this "consensus"?
How do you know they have any idea what they are talking about?
Trusting the consensus of unknown sources seems like a terrible way to make decisions for your project.
Do you want to write software that solves real problems? Or do you want to get lost in the weeds of idealism and have your project fail before it even gets out of the design phase?
Do what makes sense for you.

URL filtering using driver for OS X

I have an requirement for my client, where in i need to block particular URL based on the user input.
I was thinking to implement this by building a driver, From which i can get the packet response with all the details through this I can block/allow by building an application.(THIS is similar to what "netfilter" driver does in windows)
But as i read through the docs and websites i did not get enough information to proceed with for this particular requirement.(I found about bpf but there was not enough details to proceed with)
As I am very much NEW to the driver field,Can someone suggest me how to proceed in this case.(Steps how to proceed)
Note:I found lot of projects/docs related to USB drivers and all but they were not giving enough idea to proceed for further.
"URL" is very broad, and depending on the kinds of URL (what protocols? What about encryption?) and required granularity, some other solution than a custom kext might be a better approach. Not knowing your requirements, I can't say whether that's the case.
What I can answer, however, is that if you do decide to do this from a kext, Network Kernel Extensions are what you need to look into.
Apple also provides the enetlognke example code to illustrate how to use the NKE APIs.

is it reasonable to protect drm'd content client side

Update: this question is specifically about protecting (encipher / obfuscate) the content client side vs. doing it before transmission from the server. What are the pros / cons on going in an approach like itune's one - in which the files aren't ciphered / obfuscated before transmission.
As I added in my note in the original question, there are contracts in place that we need to comply to (as its the case for most services that implement drm). We push for drm free, and most content providers deals are on it, but that doesn't free us of obligations already in place.
I recently read some information regarding how itunes / fairplay approaches drm, and didn't expect to see the server actually serves the files without any protection.
The quote in this answer seems to capture the spirit of the issue.
The goal should simply be to "keep
honest people honest". If we go
further than this, only two things
happen:
We fight a battle we cannot win. Those who want to cheat will succeed.
We hurt the honest users of our product by making it more difficult to use.
I don't see any impact on the honest users in here, files would be tied to the user - regardless if this happens client or server side. This does gives another chance to those in 1.
An extra bit of info: client environment is adobe air, multiple content types involved (music, video, flash apps, images).
So, is it reasonable to do like itune's fairplay and protect the media client side.
Note: I think unbreakable DRM is an unsolvable problem and as most looking for an answer to this, the need for it relates to it already being in a contract with content providers ... in the likes of reasonable best effort.
I think you might be missing something here. Users hate, hate, hate, HATE DRM. That's why no media company ever gets any traction when they try to use it.
The kicker here is that the contract says "reasonable best effort", and I haven't the faintest idea of what that will mean in a court of law.
What you want to do is make your client happy with the DRM you put on. I don't know what your client thinks DRM is, can do, costs in resources, or if your client is actually aware that DRM can be really annoying. You would have to answer that. You can try to educate the client, but that could be seen as trying to explain away substandard work.
If the client is not happy, the next fallback position is to get paid without litigation, and for that to happen, the contract has to be reasonably clear. Unfortunately, "reasonable best effort" isn't clear, so you might wind up in court. You may be able to renegotiate parts of the contract in the client's favor, or you may not.
If all else fails, you hope to win the court case.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. I do see this as more of a question of expectations and possible legal interpretation than a technical question. I don't think we can help you here. You should consult with a lawyer who specializes in this sort of thing, and I don't even know what speciality to recommend. If you're in the US, call your local Bar Association and ask for a referral.
I don't see any impact on the honest users in here, files would be tied to the user - regardless if this happens client or server side. This does gives another chance to those in 1.
Files being tied to the user requires some method of verifying that there is a user. What happens when your verification server goes down (or is discontinued, as Wal-Mart did)?
There is no level of DRM that doesn't affect at least some "honest users".
Data can be copied
As long as client hardware, standalone, can not distinguish between a "good" and a "bad" copy, you will end up limiting all general copies, and copy mechanisms. Most DRM companies deal with this fact by a telling me how much this technology sets me free. Almost as if people would start to believe when they hear the same thing often enough...
Code can't be protected on the client. Protecting code on the server is a largely solved problem. Protecting code on the client isn't. All current approaches come with stingy restrictions.
Impact works in subtle ways. At the very least, you have the additional cost of implementing client-side-DRM (and all follow-up cost, including the horde of "DMCA"-shouting lawyer gorillas) It is hard to prove that you will offset this cost with the increased revenue.
It's not just about code and crypto. Once you implement client-side DRM, you unleash a chain of events in Marketing, Public Relations and Legal. A long as they don't stop to alienate users, you don't need to bother.
To answer the question "is it reasonable", you have to be clear when you use the word "protect" what you're trying to protect against...
For example, are you trying to:
authorized users from using their downloaded content via your app under certain circumstances (e.g. rental period expiry, copied to a different computer, etc)?
authorized users from using their downloaded content via any app under certain circumstances (e.g. rental period expiry, copied to a different computer, etc)?
unauthorized users from using content received from authorized users via your app?
unauthorized users from using content received from authorized users via any app?
known users from accessing unpurchased/unauthorized content from the media library on your server via your app?
known users from accessing unpurchased/unauthorized content from the media library on your server via any app?
unknown users from accessing the media library on your server via your app?
unknown users from accessing the media library on your server via any app?
etc...
"Any app" in the above can include things like:
other player programs designed to interoperate/cooperate with your site (e.g. for flickr)
programs designed to convert content to other formats, possibly non-DRM formats
hostile programs designed to
From the article you linked, you can start to see some of the possible limitations of applying the DRM client-side...
The third, originally used in PyMusique, a Linux client for the iTunes Store, pretends to be iTunes. It requested songs from Apple's servers and then downloaded the purchased songs without locking them, as iTunes would.
The fourth, used in FairKeys, also pretends to be iTunes; it requests a user's keys from Apple's servers and then uses these keys to unlock existing purchased songs.
Neither of these approaches required breaking the DRM being applied, or even hacking any of the products involved; they could be done simply by passively observing the protocols involved, and then imitating them.
So the question becomes: are you trying to protect against these kinds of attack?
If yes, then client-applied DRM is not reasonable.
If no (for example, you're only concerned about people using your app, like Apple/iTunes does), then it might be.
(repeat this process for every situation you can think of. If the adig nswer is always either "client-applied DRM will protect me" or "I'm not trying to protect against this situation", then using client-applied DRM is resonable.)
Note that for the last four of my examples, while DRM would protect against those situations as a side-effect, it's not the best place to enforce those restrictions. Those kinds of restrictions are best applied on the server in the login/authorization process.
If the server serves the content without protection, it's because the encryption is per-client.
That being said, wireshark will foil your best-laid plans.
Encryption alone is usually just as good as sending a boolean telling you if you're allowed to use the content, since the bypass is usually just changing the input/output to one encryption API call...
You want to use heavy binary obfuscation on the client side if you want the protection to literally hold for more than 5 minutes. Using decryption on the client side, make sure the data cannot be replayed and that the only way to bypass the system is to reverse engineer the entire binary protection scheme. Properly done, this will stop all the kids.
On another note, if this is a product to be run on an operating system, don't use processor specific or operating system specific anomalies such as the Windows PEB/TEB/syscalls and processor bugs, those will only make the program even less portable than DRM already is.
Oh and to answer the question title: No. It's a waste of time and money, and will make your product not work on my hardened Linux system.

How to implement a secure distributed social network?

I'm interested in how you would approach implementing a BitTorrent-like social network. It might have a central server, but it must be able to run in a peer-to-peer manner, without communication to it:
If a whole region's network is disconnected from the internet, it should be able to pass updates from users inside the region to each other
However, if some computer gets the posts from the central server, it should be able to pass them around.
There is some reasonable level of identification; some computers might be dissipating incomplete/incorrect posts or performing DOS attacks. It should be able to describe some information as coming from more trusted computers and some from less trusted.
It should be able to theoretically use any computer as a server, however, optimizing dynamically the network so that typically only fast computers with ample internet work as seeders.
The network should be able to scale to hundreds of millions of users; however, each particular person is interested in less than a thousand feeds.
It should include some Tor-like privacy features.
Purely theoretical question, though inspired by recent events :) I do hope somebody implements it.
Interesting question. With the use of already existing tor, p2p, darknet features and by using some public/private key infrastructure, you possibly could come up with some great things. It would be nice to see something like this in action. However I see a major problem. Not by some people using it for file sharing, BUT by flooding the network with useless information. I therefore would suggest using a twitter like approach where you can ban and subscribe to certain people and start with a very reduced set of functions at the beginning.
Incidentally we programmers could make a good start to accomplish that goal by NOT saving and analyzing to much information about the users and use safe ways for storing and accessing user related data!
Interesting, the rendezvous protocol does something similar to this (it grabs "buddies" in the local network)
Bittorrent is a mean of transfering static information, its not intended to have everyone become producers of new content. Also, bittorrent requires that the producer is a dedicated server until all of the clients are able to grab the information.
Diaspora claims to be such one thing.

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