Re: [Testbed-admins] query regarding MIB compatibility with the experiment switch

[Robert P Ricci <ricci@cs.utah.edu>]

A word of caution, though: you have to find the *right* person at Cisco
to talk to - years ago, I asked someone at TAC a question about VLAN
creation through SNMP, and they told me it wasn't possible. This was
celarly false, since we had been doing it for years by this point. If
you get an answer like "you can't do that through SNMP", see if they can
point you at someone within Cisco who has more expertise with SNMP.

Thus spake Keith Sklower on Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 03:54:18PM -0700:
> Rushing in where angels fear to tread, I'm goign to offer a couple
> additional comments to what Robert Ricci said.
> 
> In dealing with Cisco support, I'd ask a more general question instead
> like "I want to extend a 3rd party mangement tool for use with the
> N5000's.  How do I create a vlan by SNMP - only and how do I put ports
> in it?".
> 
> Asking "Does the N5000 support the VTP or STACK mibs" seems way too
> specific.  And the reason why I would put it like that is that
> in order to create a vlan by SNMP you often have to set a few things
> at once, rather than in separate packets.  Just merely knowing
> what MIBs are involved is not enough.
> 
> In order to develop support for the Nortel's and HP switches,
> I ran the vendor-supplied management tool and contrived to do
> a tcpdump of all the traffic to the switch in order to see how
> the tool create vlans, populated them with ports, tore them down,
> set port speed/duplex, and enabled/disabled ports.
> 
> Given that somebody from cisco was a co-author of the IETF P- and Q-
> BRIDGE mibs, it wouldn't surprise me if that's what the switch
> uses (as the HP procurves do) to create name and populate vlans.
> 
> Even if it turns out that you can't create vlans on the N5000 by
> SNMP (and there are some aspects of VLANS on HP's where you have to
> use CLI to do it, like supporting jumbo frames), it will likely
> be possbile to write a new backend snmpit_nexus.pm that talks to
> the switch using perl Expect.  If the CLI for the nexus is anything
> like CLI for every other kind of cisco switch, creating vlans
> and populating them will be relatively straight forward, and querying
> the switch for state will be a complete and utter nuisance.
> 
> (read royal PITA).
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Keith Sklower
> 
> 
> > Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:38:49 -0600
> > From: Robert P Ricci <ricci@cs.utah.edu>
> > To: Mohammed Azad <mazad1@tigers.lsu.edu>
> 
> > We actually don't use VTP or any of the stacking protocols at all. It
> > just happens that the OIDs we use for 'regular' VLAN creation and a few
> > other operations are in the VTP and STACK MIBs. This is why I think that
> > it's likely that if you give these OIDs to Cisco, they will be able to
> > tell you of another MIB that provides the same functionality.
> 
> > Thus spake Mohammed Azad on Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 11:34:35AM -0500:
> > > Hi,Actually I am wondering about one point. Cisco support informed me that The
> > > Nexus 5000 does not support the VTP technology.So I was wondering how the
> > > dynamic vlan creation will be done without vtp functionalities. Therefore I
> > > guess, this is not the matter of a particular missing MIB and it is the
> > > inability to do any vtp functionalities by the switch platform.
> > > 
> > > Can you please share some advice on this whether it is possible to use some
> > > other methods to have dynamic vlan creation without the vtp functionalities?
> > > 
> > > Thanking you
> > > Azad
> > > 
> > > On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Robert P Ricci <ricci@cs.utah.edu> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Since you are in contact with Cisco support, I would ask them how to get
> > > > the functionality that can be found in those MIBs from MIBs that the
> > > > N5000 does support. These OIDs include:
> > > >
> > > >    portAdminSpeed
> > > >    portDuplex
> > > >    vlanPortVlan
> > > >    vtpVlanName
> > > >
> > > > This is not an exhaustive list of the OIDs we use from these MIBs, but
> > > > it's a good start.
> > > >
> > > > Thus spake Mohammed Azad on Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 06:51:58PM -0500:
> > > > > Hello All,I took last couple of weeks to figure it out what the real
> > > > > scenario is with the N5000 switch. I contacted with cisco technical
> > > > > personnels and inquired them about this issue of supporting. They
> > > > informed
> > > > > me that :
> > > > >
> > > > > The Nexus 5000 does not support VTP and does not support StackWise, so
> > > > > consequently you will not find the respective MIB?s for those two
> > > > > technologies on any current or planned NX-OS release for the Nexus 5000.
> > > > > So there is no possibility to upgrade the OS version of the switch to
> > > > have
> > > > > the missing MIBs nor there is another way (by changing the source code or
> > > > > some other way) to accommodate the VTP through the usage of other
> > > > MIBs/OIDs
> > > > > as N5000 does not support VTP functionalities.
> > > > >
> > > > > Therefore I am now in a dilemma regarding how to make emulab system works
> > > > > wwith this N5000 switch.It would be great if anybody of you can kindly
> > > > put
> > > > > some lights on this.
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanking you
> > > > > Azad
> > > > >
> > > > > On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 1:18 AM, Robert P Ricci <ricci@cs.utah.edu>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Thus spake Mohammed Azad on Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 11:21:39AM -0500:
> > > > > > > Hello Mr. Ranadive,
> > > > > > > If STACK-MIB was the only MIB that is missing, then I could follow
> > > > your
> > > > > > > suggestion more easily and set up the port speed at the console by
> > > > > > manually
> > > > > > > (which, infact, I will do).But the problem is - VTP-MIB is also not
> > > > > > > present.Dynamic VLAN creation/deletion  is done by setting the OIDs
> > > > of
> > > > > > > VTP-MIB.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Can you please give any idea regarding this?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Yes, the operations done from VTP-MIB will need to be ported to your
> > > > new
> > > > > > switch in order for snmpit to be useful on it.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > --

-- 
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| Robert P Ricci <ricci@cs.utah.edu> | <ricci@flux.utah.edu>
| Research Associate, University of Utah Flux Group
| www.flux.utah.edu | www.emulab.net
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