RE: LLDP MIBs

["C. M. Heard" <heard@pobox.com>]

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004, Harrington, David wrote:
> In the meantime, somebody raised the point that the way the LLDP MIB was
> written may be in error. I did not find anything in SMIv2 or in the mib
> review guidelines that say that using the value rather than the name is
> in error. I hesitate to go to the IEEE and say "you must change your
> mib" if I cannot even identify where the CLR exists. 
> 
> Can anybody identify where this rule exists in the SMIv2 or mib review
> guidelines?

As far as I can tell there is no rule in SMIv2 that requires that
the DEFVAL for an enumerated INTEGER be expressed as a label.  
However, all of the examples in RFC 2578 use that form, and I know
of no standards-track MIB module that does otherwise.

> Is this a problem for the import functions of widely-used SNMP manager
> applications, such as HPOV, Tivoli, CA Unicenter, BMC Patrol, Spectrum,
> MRTG, and so on, to anybody's knowledge?

I don't know of any specific problems with those tools.  Still, if I
were doing a MIB review I would _suggest_ (not require) that the
DEFVAL for every enumerated INTEGER be expressed as a label because
(a) it is customary to do so and (b) all the evidence that is
available to me suggests that this form is more likely to be
universally accepted (after all, at least one well-known (and
well-respected) parser rejects numerical specifications).  And I
would not mind seeing this suggestion codified in the MIB review
guidelines (again, as a suggestion, not as a requirement).

Mike