PySMI: user perspective¶

Specifying MIB source¶

The –mib-source option can be given multiple times. Each instance of –mib-source must specify a URL where ASN.1 MIB modules should be looked up and downloaded from. At this moment three MIB sourcing methods are supported:

• Local files. This could be a top-level directory where MIB files are located. Subdirectories will be automatically traversed as well. Example: file:///usr/share/snmp .
• HTTP/HTTPS. A fully specified URL where MIB module name is specified by a @mib@ placeholder. When specific MIB is looked up, PySMI will replace that placeholder with MIB module name it is looking for. Example: http://mibs.snmplabs.com/asn1/@mib@
• SFTP/FTP. A fully specified URL including FTP username and password. MIB module name is specified by a @mib@ placeholder. When specific MIB is looked up, PySMI will replace that placeholder with MIB module name it is looking for. Example: http://mibs.snmplabs.com/asn1/@mib@

When trying to fetch a MIB module, the mibdump.py tool will try each of configured –mib-source transports in order of specification till first successful hit.

By default mibdump.py will search:

• file:///usr/share/snmp
• http://mibs.snmplabs.com/asn1/@mib@

Once another –mib-source option is given, those defaults will not be used and should be manually given to mibdump.py if needed.

Fuzzying MIB module names¶

There is no single convention on how MIB module files should be named. By default mibdump.py will try a handful of guesses when trying to find a file containing specific MIB module. It will try upper and lower cases, a file named after MIB module, try adding different extensions to a file (.mib, .my etc), try adding/cutting the ‘-MIB’ part of the file name. If nothing matches, mibdump.py will consider that probed –mib-source does not contain MIB module it is looking for.

There is a small chance, though, that fuzzy natching may result in getting a wrong MIB. If that happens, you can disable the above fuzzyness by giving mibdump.py the –disable-fuzzy-source flag.

Avoiding excessive transformation¶

It well may happen that many MIB modules refer to a common single MIB module. In that case mibdump.py may transform it many times unless you tell mibdump.py where to search for already transformed MIBs. That place could of course be a directory where mibdump.py writes its transforms into and/or some other local locations.

The –mib-searcher option specifies either local directory or importable Python package (applicable to pysnmp transformation) containing transformed MIB modules. Multiple –mib-searcher options could be given, mibdump.py will use each of them in order of specification till first hit.

If no transformed MIB module is found, mibdump.py will go on running its full transformation cycle.

By default mibdump.py will use:

• –mib-searcher=$HOME/.pysnmp/mibs
• –mib-searcher=pysnmp_mibs

Once another –mib-searcher option is given, those defaults will not be used and should be manually given to mibdump.py if needed.

Blacklisting MIBs¶

Some MIBs may not be automatically transformed into another form and therefore must be explicitly excluded from processing. Such MIBs are normally manually implemented for each target MIB format. Examples include MIBs containing base SMI types or ASN.1 MACRO definitions (SNMPv2-SMI, SNMPV2-TC), initially compiled but later manually modified MIBs and others.

Default list of blacklisted MIBs for pysnmp transformation target is: RFC-1212, RFC-1215, RFC1065-SMI, RFC1155-SMI, RFC1158-MIB, RFC1213-MIB, SNMP-FRAMEWORK-MIB, SNMP-TARGET-MIB, SNMPv2-CONF, SNMPv2-SMI, SNMPv2-TC, SNMPv2-TM, TRANSPORT-ADDRESS-MIB.

If you need to modify this list use the –mib-stub option.

Dealing with broken MIBs¶

Curiously enough, some MIBs coming from quite prominent vendors appear syntactically incorrect. That leads to MIB compilers fail on such MIBs. While many MIB compiler implementations (PySMI included) introduce workarounds and grammar relaxations allowing slightly broken MIBs to compile, however severely broken MIBs can’t be reliably compiled.

As another workaround PySMI offers the borrow feature. It allows PySMI to fetch already transformed MIBs even if corresponding ASN.1 MIB can’t be found or parsed.

Default source of pre-compiled MIBs for pysnmp target is:

• http://mibs.snmplabs.com/pysnmp/fulltexts/@mib@
• http://mibs.snmplabs.com/pysnmp/notexts/@mib@

If you wish to modify this default list use one or more –mib-borrower options.

Choosing target transformation¶

PySMI design allows many transformation formats to be supported in form of specialized code generation components. At the moment PySMI can produce MIBs in form of pysnmp classes and JSON documents.

JSON document schema is chosen to preserve as much of MIB information as possible. There’s no established JSON schema known to the authors.

Setting destination directory¶

By default mibdump.py writes pysnmp MIBs into:

• $HOME/.pysnmp/mibs (on UNIX)
• @HOME@PySNMP ConfigurationMIBs (on Windows)

and JSON files in current working directory.

Use –destination-directory option to change default output diretory.

Performing unconditional transformation¶

By default PySMI will avoid creating new transformations if fresh enough versions already exist. By using –rebuild option you could trick PySMI doing requested transformation for all given MIB modules.

Ignoring transformation errors¶

By default PySMI will stop on first fatal error occurred during transformations of a series of MIBs. If you wish PySMI to ignore fatal errors and therefore skipping failed MIB, use the –ignore-errors option.

Keep in mind that skipping transformation of MIBs that are imported by other MIBs might make dependant MIBs inconsistent for use.

Skipping dependencies¶

Most MIBs rely on other MIBs for their operations. This is indicated by the IMPORT statement in ASN.1 language. PySMI attempts to transform all MIBs IMPORT’ed by MIB being transformed. That is done in recurrsive manner.

By using –no-dependencies flag you can tell PySMI not to transform any MIBs other than those explicitly requested to be transformed.

Keep in mind that skipping dependencies may make the whole set of transformed MIBs inconsistent.

Generating MIB texts¶

Most MIBs are very verbose. They contain many human-oriented descriptions and clarifications written in plain English. Those texts may be useful for MIB browser applications (to display those texts to human operator) but might not make any sense in other applications.

To save space and CPU time, PySMI does not by default include those texts into transformed MIBs. However this can be reverted by adding –generate-mib-texts option.

Building MIB indices¶

If –build-index option is given, depending on the destination format chosen, the mibdump.py tool may create new (or update existing) document containing MIB information in a form that is convenient for querying cornerstone properties of MIB files.

For example, building JSON index for IP-MIB.json, TCP-MIB.json and UDP-MIB.json MIB modules would emit something like this:

{
   "compliance": {
      "1.3.6.1.2.1.48.2.1.1": [
        "IP-MIB"
      ],
      "1.3.6.1.2.1.49.2.1.1": [
        "TCP-MIB"
      ],
      "1.3.6.1.2.1.50.2.1.1": [
        "UDP-MIB"
      ]
   },
   "identity": {
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.48": [
         "IP-MIB"
       ],
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.49": [
         "TCP-MIB"
       ],
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.50": [
         "UDP-MIB"
       ]
   },
   "oids": {
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.4": [
         "IP-MIB"
       ],
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.5": [
         "IP-MIB"
       ],
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.6": [
         "TCP-MIB"
       ],
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.7": [
         "UDP-MIB"
       ],
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.49": [
         "TCP-MIB"
       ],
       "1.3.6.1.2.1.50": [
         "UDP-MIB"
       ]
   }
}

With this example, compliance and identity keys point to MODULE-COMPLIANCE and MODULE-IDENTITY MIB objects, oids list top-level OIDs branches defined in MIB modules. Full index build over thousands of MIBs could be seen here.

Minor speedups¶

There are a few options that may improve PySMI performance.

The –cache-directory option may be used to point to a temporary writable directory where PySMI parser (e.g. Ply) would store its lookup tables.

By default PySMI performing transformation into pysnmp format will also pre-compile Python source into interpreter bytecode. That takes some time and space. If you wish not to cache Python bytecode or to do that later, use the –no-python-compile option.