SNMP MIB Terminology: MIB - A Management Information Base. It's a database, essentially, just not a familiar RDBMS. Every device that supports SNMP has one, which you can query and update, if you know it's schema. The schema of a MIB is defined in a set of MIB files where each file contains modular portions of the schema. Since each device may implement a different overall schema, a module-based approach allows for that sort of flexibility MIB File - An ASCII text file written according to the SMI format, which is based on and defined using ASN.1. The MIB file is used to define and describe the schema of an SNMP MIB, or a portion of one. MIB Object - A queriable entity from an SNMP MIB. In a MIB browser, this is often described as a leaf or column. Each MIB Object is defined in a MIB file using the OBJECT-TYPE syntax. A MIB Object would define the following properties: object_type: The name of this object in the SMI OBJECT-TYPE definition in the MIB File. type_oid: The OID of the object_type, as defined in the MIB. index_name[n]: The name of the n-th index of this object-type, as defined in the MIB. (only valid for tables, table entries, and columns) Object Instance - To borrow terminology from Object Oriented Programming, if a MIB Object is a class definition, an Object Instance is an instance of an object of a class. In addition to the properties of a MIB Object, it has the following which establish it's identity and value: value: The actual value, as returned from a query to a device. instance_id: The specific identity of this object instance in a device in relation to it's object_type. It is a portion of an OID string that is composed by the concatenation of one or more indices. index_val[n]: The value of the n-th index of this object's instance full_oid: The full identifier for this particular object instance in a device's MIB. It's the same as concatenating the type_oid and instance_id #### ifTable.ifEntry.ifType - value is an integer representing the type of interface - index_val[0] is an integer value known as an ifIndex ifTable.ifEntry.ifAdminStatus - value is an integer that represents an interface's administrative state (1=up,2=down,3=testing) - index_val[0] is an integer value known as an ifIndex ifTable.ifEntry.ifInOctets - value is the number of bytes that have passed through the interface since being turned up. - index_val[0] is an integer value known as an ifIndex #### adMX2820M13PrvSlotTable.adMX2820M13PrvSlotEntry.adMX2820M13PrvCardPairID - value is the name of the protection pair - index_val[0] is the slot number of this card in the pair adGenPortSlotMapTable.adGenPortSlotMapEntry.adGenSlotAddress - value is the slot number an interface is provisioned on (many interfaces per slot) - index_val[0] is the ifIndex value that corresponds to an interface adMX2820M13StatDS3Table.adMX2820M13StatDS3Entry.adMX2820M13NetFuncServState - value is a bitmask with the status of a DS3 circuit - index_val[0] is the ifIndex value that corresponds to this interface