2.4.5 Entity MIB (entmib)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 42nd IETF Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. It may now be out-of-date. Last Modified: 23-Jul-98

Chair(s):

Keith McCloghrie <kzm@cisco.com>

Operations and Management Area Director(s):

Harald Alvestrand <Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no>
Bert Wijnen <wijnen@vnet.ibm.com>

Operations and Management Area Advisor:

Bert Wijnen <wijnen@vnet.ibm.com>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion:entmib@cisco.com
To Subscribe: majordomo@cisco.com
In Body: subscribe entmib your_email_address
Archive: ftp://ftp.cisco.com/entmib/entmib

Description of Working Group:

This working group is chartered to standardize a set of managed objects representing logical and physical entities and the relationships between them. Logical entities can occur when a single agent supports multiple instances of one MIB, such as RFCs 1253, 1493, 1516 or 1525, where each instance represents a single (logical) device/entity. Physical entities are the actual physical components on which the logical entities operate; typically, the physical components exist in a hierarchy. The set of objects will be consistent with the SNMP framework and existing SNMP standards.

The scope of the defined managed objects should allow an NMS to interrogate a standard SNMP context and thereby discover what logical and physical entities exist, how to access the MIB information of each logical entity, and the relationships between the various entities. The MIB should support both a single agent or multiple agents in one physical entity. The Working Group should adopt a minimalist approach for the (initial) MIB so as to maximize the chance of success, e.g., read-only.

Goals and Milestones:

Done

  

Hold BOF at Stockholm IETF.

Done

  

Post Internet-Draft for Entity MIB.

Done

  

Meet at Dallas IETF to review Internet-Draft and the issues raised during mailing list discussion.

Done

  

Post updated Entity MIB Internet-Draft.

Done

  

Meet at IETF to reach consensus on updated Internet-Draft.

Done

  

Submit final version of Internet-Draft for consideration as a Proposed Standard.

Apr 98

  

Finalize scope of changes/augmentations to RFC 2037

Apr 98

  

Post updated/new Internet Drafts

Aug 98

  

Reach agreement on changes/extensions to RFC 2037

Oct 98

  

Evaluate status of RFC 2037 and report to the IESG if it should be recycled at Proposed or can be elevated to Draft Standard.

Oct 98

  

Submit Internet Draft containing Entity MIB Extensions to IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard.

Internet-Drafts:

Request For Comments:

RFC

Status

Title

RFC2037

PS

Entity MIB

Current Meeting Report

IETF #42 WG Minutes
OPS Area; Entity MIB WG
Chicago, IL 24-aug-98
WG Chair: Keith McCloghrie (kzm@cisco.com)
Minutes: Andy Bierman (abierman@cisco.com)

Review Material
Entity MIB (Version 2): <draft-ietf-entmib-v2-00.txt>

Agenda:

Executive Summary:

The working group is finishing up Version 2 of the Entity MIB (RFC 2037). The current
draft was reviewed at this meeting, and the next version should be ready for "WG Last
Call". The final draft should be ready for RFC publication in October 1998.

1) Review minutes of last meeting

The WG Chair gave a summary of the MIB changes agreed to at the last IETF meeting.
There wasn't much comment on this topic, and no issues were raised regarding the L.A.
meeting minutes.

2) Review changes incorporated into draft-ietf-entmib-v2-00.txt

The WG spent most of the meeting discussing open issues with the Entity MIB draft.

2.1) RevisionString textual convention

The WG discussed the RevisionString TC, as currently specified in the draft. After much
debate over the field separator section, the WG decided that this TC should be removed
from the MIB.

The textual convention defines several field separator character sequences for
distinguishing multiple revision strings within a single MIB object (with syntax
RevisionString). Since several field separators are identified, it is possible one or more
of these characters could be present inadvertently in a particular vendor's revision string,
which could cause an NMS to misinterpret the returned MIB value. The WG could not
decide on a single field separator value.

The RevisionString TC will be removed, and the revision string MIB objects will use the
SnmpAdminString TC instead. The DESCRIPTION clauses for these objects will stress
rhat binary revision strings must be converted to printable strings somehow, in order to
comply with the SnmpAdminString semantics.

2.2) entLogical compliance

The compliance macro for the entLogical group is broken in the current draft. A new
compliance macro will be created, which does not contain the (now deprecated)
entLogicalCommunity object.

2.3) Document format

The Entity MIB draft boilerplate text and document format will be updated to comply
with the following documents:

* "Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3" (RFC 2026)
* "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels"
(RFC 2119)
* "Instructions to RFC Authors" (RFC 2223)

3) General discussion of current MIB

The WG next discussed new features and issues outside the scope of the current draft.

3.1) Support for a hierarchy of logical entities

The WG discussed possible enhancements to the Entity MIB to represent a hierarchy of
logical components. The entPhysicalContainedIn object and entPhysicalContainsTable
could be 'cloned' for the entLogicalTable.
The WG decided that this feature might be added in a future version of the Entity MIB,
but it will not be added to the draft in progress.

4) Decision on whether document is ready to go to Last Call

The WG agreed on the following milestones:
* the WG Editor should update the Entity MIB I-D within two weeks
* The draft will be then discussed on the mailing list for one week.
* If no major issues are raised, the WG Chair will then issue a two week WG Last Call.
* If no issues are raised during this last call, the draft will then be forwarded to the IESG
for publication consideration as a standards track RFC. The MIB will cycle at "Proposed
Draft Standard" status.

Slides

None received.

Attendees List

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