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Version 2.1 of MIB Smithy is a minor update with a small number of major improvements. A new Trap Watch tool has been added for monitoring incoming traps and notifications, expanding the set of built-in SNMP management tools added in version 2.0. Some optimizations to core indexing and search algorithms have been made that yield huge performance gains in loading and compiling many modules. The performance gains are minor for typical small projects with only a small hand-full of modules, but reach over 95% when about 200 modules are loaded into a single project/database. Performance is less dependent upon number of records and more dependent on record name length than earlier versions. Several bugs (mostly minor) have also been fixed.

Signficiant Changes (MIB Smithy)

• The “Files” tree in the project panel now includes .my, .mi2, .txt and (in professional) .xml files in addition to the .mib files that were shown previously.
• Evaluation version limits have been increased to 5 modules per project.
• Added new Trap Watch tool for monitoring incoming traps and notifications.
• SNMP Table View tool now shows additional columns for data extracted from instance subidentifiers corresponding to each of the table indexes.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes (MIB Smithy)

• OBJECT-TYPE output for normal SMI format was omitting the AUGMENTS field.
• MOSY output was not including INDEX or AUGMENTS information.
• Numerous minor/random Tcl error corrections that could occur in various more obscure features due to some incomplete conversions to new calling conventions (mostly issues introduced in 2.0).
• Corrected a potential divide by zero error if no variables are returned in SNMP Walk.
• Corrected some extraneous output in XML output generation around compliance group comments.

Signficiant Changes (MIB Smithy SDK)

• Errors that occur in SNMP request callbacks and other event processing now trigger a background error in Tcl rather than being ignored or printed to stdout.
• Added -includes synonym for querying conformance module properties.
• Added -indexdecl/-augmentsdecl options for OBJECT-TYPE records. These options return the “as-declared” INDEX/AUGMENTS fields for the record, while the existing options (-index/-augments) now check the record above and below so that, for example, -index returns sysORIndex for both sysORTable, sysOREntry and each column, while -indexdecl returns sysORIndex only for sysOREntry.
• Added -syntaxdecl property for SMI database ‘set’ operations for objects, typedefs and variations that allow all syntax information to be specified as a single property, as returned by the ‘get’ property of the same name. Variations also add a ‘-write-syntaxdecl’ property to serve the same purpose for WRITE-SYNTAX.
• The default SMI Database log channel is now “stderr” instead of “stdout” for the benefit of conversion scripts designed to send their results to stdout for command line redirects and pipes. Also, logging can now be disabled by configuring the database’s log channel to an empty string (if, for example, all that is desired during validation is a pass/fail result).
• The SNMP session “bulk” subcommand (for sending get-bulk requests) now sends a get-next request instead if the SNMP version being used to send the message is SNMPv1. Superfluous variable bindings (i.e., those that are repeaters according to non-repeaters when max-repetitions is 0) are discarded from the request.
• The get-bulk request’s default non-repeaters/max-repetitions values for are now 0/1 instead of 0/0. The former defaults normally result in an empty response.
• A new indexing scheme and search algorithm for name-based lookups has been implemented that should provide a very large speed improvement for individual databases containing a very large quantity of records.
• The SMI Database’s “log” command now by default adds a newline to the end of the message. Like Tcl’s “puts” command, it may take an optional “-nonewline” argument to suppress the newline.
• Added “-container” query property to all record types, which returns the fully qualified name of the record in which the queried record is contained. This property functions the same as the “-fullname” property except that the name of the queried record is excluded from the result. That is, supposing -fullname returns @File5!SNMPv2-MIB!sysDescr, -container returns only @File5!SNMPv2-MIB.
• Additional internal optimizations which, together with the new name indexing optimizations, yield a greater than 95% performance increase for MIB file loading and validation for large numbers of MIB modules (e.g. hundreds in a single database) where performance could really bottom out previously.
• Added SNMP Session “inform” and “trap” subcommands for sending inform requests and SNMPv1/v2 trap messages.
• Added “oidcmp” SMI Database subcommand for doing OID comparisons, with -limit and -subtree options for controlling the number of subidentifiers compared.
• Added “-indexparts” OBJECT-TYPE query property for parsing column instance subidentifiers into individual elements for each index.
• Added “-localport” SNMP Session option for configuring a port (default 162) for receiving notifications on if a handler is configured. Added “bind” subcommand for configuring handlers for incoming notifications.
• Variable bindings encoding values of type OBJECT IDENTIFIER now accept identifiers, relative OIDs and other forms of OIDs for the value in addition to absolute OIDs.
• Receive errors from the socket now include an error number and, on Unix, an error message to allow for easier problem resolution.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes (MIB Smithy SDK)

• Version 1.6 changes for suppressing duplicate error/warning messages were not fully merged into version 2.0, so duplicates messages could again appear. This has been corrected.
• There was some inconsistent use of ‘.’ versus ‘:’ in module.descriptor forms for type/value references expected during record modifications versus returned by queries. They should constantly use ‘:’ as the separator now.
• A recent change in supporting multiple synonyms for setting the OID value of objects resulted in a bug that could cause the internal OID tree/index to not be updated.
• A crash could occur when querying the -asn1type (base type) property for an object with a derived-type syntax when the referenced type has not been defined or loaded.
• Some record types were allowing invalid (for that record type) STATUS values to be set (though this would be caught during validation).
• Bug fixes for multiple-interpreter compatibility. A master database and session (smilib and snmplib) are now created in each interpreter that the package is loaded into.
• Enumeration comments that begin after the enumeration but still on the same line should now be associated with the correct enumeration, rather than being associated with the following enumeration.
• An error could occur when sending set requests without a type in the variable bindings indicating “-basetype” as an unknown option (which should be “-asn1type”).
• Corrected a couple of potential memory corruption and leak issues.
• The MSG_SYNTAX_SMIONLY compiler warning could previously result in either a garbage type name being printed or potentially a crash.
• Clarified MSG_ROW_TYPENAME compiler warning, which was giving somewhat ambiguous row/type references.
• Corrected byte ordering issues in IpAddress formatting for callbacks.

Muonics added SNMP management-role (request originator) capabilities to its MIB Smithy series of products starting with version 2.0. Notification (trap/inform) processing was added in version 2.1 (the current version as of this report). Neither version supports agent-role (request processor) capabilities at this time. However, all PDU types are fully parsed by both versions, including requests, before unsupported PDU types are discarded by the dispatcher layer.

Both versions of MIB Smithy SDK, from which all of the MIB Smithy series are derived, have been fully tested with all four of the PROTOS c06-SNMPv1 Test Suites. Version 2.0 binds to any available port for sending requests and receiving responses. Since this was not conducive to testing, a special build was required, with the only difference from the official 2.0 release being a hard-coded binding to ports 161 and 162 as appropriate. Version 2.1 allows configuration of a bind port for receiving notifications, so it was not an issue for that version.

After running the full series of tests we found both versions to behave as expected, with no signs of failure. We have thus concluded that Muonics’ past and current product versions are not susceptible to the security vulnerabilities associated with CA-2002-03.

VU#107186 – Not Vulnerable
VU#854306 – Not Vulnerable

Santa Cruz, CA. — (MARKET WIRE) — 05/01/2003 — Muonics this week announced the release version 2.0 of MIB Smithy, a software product for Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) developers, Management Information Base (MIB) designers and internet-draft authors providing a Visual GUI-based environment for designing, editing and compiling MIB modules according to the SMIv1 and SMIv2 (Structure of Management Information) standards.
Continue reading Muonics Releases MIB Smithy 2.0 With XML, SNMP Tools, Custom Compiler Formats

Version 2.0 of MIB Smithy is a significant update that adds a number of new features and capabilities, including several built-in SNMP management tools with SNMPv1/v2c/v3 support, XML import/export support, support for custom compiler formats, and an exposed library core for SMI and SNMP script development and SMI document conversion with Tcl/Tk.

Significant Changes

• The “Build” menu now contains a “Settings” menu item to configure the build process.
• The Build Settings now allow specifying the directories for intermediate and output files, as well as the ability to mark individual files as dependencies to be excluded from the build. When marked as a dependency, a file will be validated and cross-checked, but will not generate any output files when compiled. This allows projects to include files whose presence is necessary to fully validate imported references, but are not necessary for the desired output.
• The Build Settings dialog also allows specification of Tcl commands to be evaluated to generate custom compiler output formats. Selecting “Custom Build” from the “Output Format” list enables the “Custom Build” tab of the dialog. Here you can specify a command to be evaluated before and after a build, to compile an individual module, to compile a file, and to “clean” the project (removing files generated by the custom compiler). Details on how to develop custom compiler formats will be available in the MIB Smithy 2.0 User’s Guide. (Profession Edition Only)
• Several new built-in SNMP management tools: MIB Browser, Table Viewer, SNMP Walk and SNMP Query. These tools support SNMPv1, SNMPv2 and SNMPv3 with both HMAC-MD5-96 and HMAC-SHA-96 authentication, as well as CBC-DES privacy. (CBC-DES supported in non-evaluation version only).
• The SMI/SNMP library core is now available as a dynamically loaded Tcl/Tk extension Documentation for the APIs will be forthcoming soon (there are a few items remaining to be implemented or changed in the libraries to make them a bit more flexible in some areas). The extension may be loaded into Tcl/Tk by adding the ‘lib/smithysdk’ directory to the ‘auto_path’ variable using the “package require smithysdk” command. (Tcl/Tk extension available in non-evaluation version only)
• Added ability to import and export modules to XML format according to the XML Schema proposal at http://www.muonics.com/XMLSMI/, which provides a much richer and more complete format from extant DTDs. A copy of the schema can also be found in the “docs” directory as “XML-SMI-2.0.xsd”. (“Preview” Only in evaluation version, “Export” Only in Standard Edition)
• Several SMI output-formatting improvements have been made, such as smarter recognition and joining of lines of paragraphs and minor speed improvements both in output generation and other areas.
• The “Preview” command in the main Edit menu and the popup menu for the Project Browser tree have been replaced by submenus that allow selection of either SMI or XML formats to be previewed as. The toolbar button continues to preview in normal SMI format.
• A warning is now issued if an object or textual convention of type ‘BITS’ neglects to assign a value to bit 0, which is loosely required by SMIv2.
• The Tcl/Tk core has been upgraded to version 8.4.2. This may result in some minor cosmetic changes in addition to the benefits of the bugs that have been fixed since the prior version used.
• New application icons in Windows version (no more Tk icon in the corner).
• Minor cosmetic and behavioral improvements to the icon trees (used by the MIB and Project browsers), including automatically making new items in the tree visible when created.
• Many core API improvements for the MIB Smithy SDK allowing for querying various properties–such as enumerations and size/range refinements, either “as declared” directly within the specified record, or “as inherited” from any derived-from types or other records.
• Added several RFC documents for the various SMI versions to the “docs” directory of the installation.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

• Type assignments in the Project Browser tree no longer appear to be expandable branches (no more [+] icon that serves no purpose).
• It was possible to cause a crash, if one were determined to do so intentionally, by doing something to generate an compiler error message longer than about 4K. This is no longer possible: all internal code for generating error messages incorporates bound limits.