Blog

MIB Views 2.0 is now available for download. This release is available to all licensed MIB Views users. If your support period previously expired (or was due to expire) prior to December 31, 2013, you will find that your support period has been extended to December 31, 2013, so that this release is available to you.

This is partly in recognition of the length of time it’s been since the 1.9 release, but also because a number of things have been addressed that I would have liked to have gotten into the product a long time ago (such as ability to save agents, and fixing a number of minor but annoying quirks of the UI not mentioned specifically below), for which I’d just feel better about not having anyone stuck on a 1.x release, and create a better foundation for things to come.

Changes in this release:

387: Add save option for agent settings

MIB Views agent configuration can now be saved to a file in XML format and opened in new windows or sessions, rather than only remembering the last (partial) configuration. It will not save SNMPv3 passwords or unlocalized keys, but it will save localized keys, so it is recommended that agents be saved only to secure (e.g. encrypted or readable only by owner) locations.

5809: Remember SNMPv3 Trap Watch configuration

SNMPv3 Trap Watch tool configuration (port, SNMPv3 user name, keys, etc.) is now stored in the user’s preferences file and remembered between runs.

5806: Change preferences file format to XML

MIB Views application preferences are now stored in XML rather than INI format to allow for future features with more complex preferences. Existing preferences will be converted automatically.

5945: Show/Hide and Clear Message Log

Options were added to the View menu to show or hide the Message Log panel, as well as clear the log.

5954: Improve GUI responsiveness during walk

The Walk tool could appear to update in bursts if more CPU time was spent processing messages than allowing for GUI updates. It will now ensure the GUI updates when entries are added to the result table.

5485: OSX: Check if file system is writable when adding MIBs

MIB Views will no longer allow MIB modules to be added if it is being run from a read-only file system (e.g. the downloaded disk image). Previously it would report the issue but still allow the MIB to load for the duration of the session.

5953: Bad option “-fulloid” error in Tree View

A ‘Bad option “-fulloid”‘ error could occur in the Tree View due to changes introduced in version 1.9 to better handle ambiguous MIB definitions.

5766: Improve Unsigned32/Gauge32 conversion to derived types

MIB Views will better handle converting Unsigned32 and Gauge32, which have the same on-the-wire encoding, to the proper syntax for display purposes provided appropriate MIBs are loaded.

2121: Add support for pre-localized and unlocalized keys

SNMPv3 sessions can now be configured directly with unlocalized or localized auth/priv keys, rather than requiring passwords and letting the session manage conversion to keys and key localization.

1870: Add support for MODULE-CONFORMANCE (RFC-1303)

Support was added for parsing and validating the MODULE-CONFORMANCE construct from RFC 1303 (the SMIv1 predecessor to SMIv2’s AGENT-CAPABILITIES).

5127: Change preferences file format to XML

MIB Views application preferences are now stored in XML rather than INI format to allow for future features with more complex preferences. Existing preferences will be converted automatically.

5878: Windows: Prefer Application Data folder over Registry for preferences

MIB Views will no longer save application preferences to the Windows Registry except as a fallback if it can’t save elsewhere. Instead, preferences are saved to the user’s Application Data folder. Existing preferences will be imported, and user given the option to remove or preserve the old registry entries.

Plus a number of other minor changes/fixes not worth mentioning individually.

MIB Views 1.9 is now available for download. The following changes are in this release:

393: Add option to show additional columns in tools

You can now show additional columns in most tools, either through the View menu or by right-clicking on the table header. For example, for the Table View you can opt to show the instance identifiers, which previously only appeared if the index values could not be parsed. For other tools, you can opt to show the OID and module name.

5006: Add format for TimeTicks values

TimeTicks values (such as sysUpTime) are now rendered in “Nd HH:MM:SS.ss” format (days, hours, minutes, seconds, deciseconds) rather than leaving them as an integer value, by default, unless there’s an associated TEXTUAL-CONVENTION with a different DISPLAY-HINT.

5095: Improve handling of MIB ambiguities in SNMP Tools

Several improvements were made in handling of issues with looking up MIB definitions (such as “search string is ambiguous” errors). The Tree View in particular previously would report the ambiguity and not allow further expansion, but now will ignore it and continue, and (for all tools) message dialogs reporting a problem looking up the entered OID will provide more/better details about what the issue is.

4210: Invalid type reference ” setting object with unimported type

An “Invalid type reference ”” error could occur in the SNMP Query tool when setting object with an undefined/unimported type.

3916: When Tcl error occurs, stop button no longer works

In some cases, an error that occurred during an SNMP operation in a tool that caused the tool to cancel the operation would leave other parts of the GUI (such as the stop button) in a state thinking the operation was still in progress. Typically this required having to open a new window to make the tool usable again.

3915: Error: Don’t know how to encode objects of type ‘SEQUENCE’

The SNMP Query tool will no longer allow entering an ASN.1 type (such as SEQUENCE) that is not legal for an accessible OBJECT-TYPE. Doing so would result in a “Don’t know how to encode …” error (which, while correct, would leave the tool in an unusable state).

5046: More reliable methods to get Host IDs on Unix

Another/new method is used to determine Host IDs on FreeBSD, Linux and Mac OS X. This method should be able to see interfaces that are disconnected or unconfigured. In some cases, these were previously not seen, which could be a hassle for multi-homing or laptop use with no active network connection.

MIB Views 1.8.1 is now available for download. Changes in this release:

4804: Update bundled MIBs

Bundled IETF MIBs have been updated or added from RFCs 4004 through 6672, and IANA MIBs as of 07/23/2012.

4805: parse error in hyphenated enumeration comments

In a rare corner case (one out of all the MIBs bundled), a multiply-hyphenated word in a comment following the comma after an enumeration value could cause a parse error.

4802: Wrong contextEngineID in responses to SNMPv3 informs

The Response PDU returned to an SNMPv3 Inform Request sender was including the local Engine ID for contextEngineID, as with msgAuthoritativeEngineID, instead of the Inform sender’s. The contextName and contextEngineID in the response are now taken from the Inform Request.

MIB Views 1.8 is now available for download. This release includes the following changes:

2340: Create new screen shots

Documentation has been updated with new screen shots. Larger screen shots have been scaled down with links to full-sized images.

4788: SNMP Query Tool: Adjustable panel size

The relative size of the Value entry area and the Variable List area of the SNMP Query tool can now be adjusted. At smaller application window sizes, the Value entry area could become obscured and unusable, and this is an interim solution. (Longer-term plan is to redesign this tool to be more spread-sheet like, allowing data entry directly in the Variable List.)

3174: TDomain/TAddress formatting in tools

Provided the appropriate MIBs are loaded, the various SNMP tools in MIB Views will now detect TDomain/TAddress object pairs and format the TAddress value according to the associated TDomain value (e.g. if the TDomain is snmpUDPDomain, then the TAddress will be formatted according to the SnmpUDPAddress DISPLAY-HINT). Previously the TAddress was displayed in hex, as with other unknown OCTET STRINGs.

4754: Trap Watch: Add support for SNMPv3 auth/priv informs

With support for receiving SNMPv3 auth/priv informs added in MIB Smithy SDK, the Trap Watch tool in MIB Views now supports these as well. The Trap Settings dialog that comes up to configure the listening port now has addition fields for specifying a user name, auth/priv passwords and protocols, and local snmpEngineID.

388: New right-click pop-up menu in Tree View

Added popup menu to Tree View with refresh command and commands to open other tools with selected item, as well as entries in Tools menu to raise each tool’s tab.

1226: Add corner sizegrip to toplevels

The Windows and Unix versions now have size grips in the lower right corner of some windows if they’re resizable. The Mac version already displayed these.

644: Walk column headers not highlighted until refocus

On Mac OS X, the table column header that’s active for sorting normally displays a blue background. But in some cases the header would not show blue until window lost and regained focus.

641: Artifacts in Tree View

On Unix, expanding and collapsing branches in the Tree View could sometimes leave artifacts of what was previously displayed that would remain until the window was resized, forcing a full re-display. This was fixed with a newer version the control it’s built with.

4572: can’t read “tail”: no such variable error when add mib fails

A “no such variable error” error could occur when attempting to add a MIB if it was unsuccessful. This has been fixed.

The following changes from MIB Smithy SDK are also applicable to MIB Views:

4758: Recursive OID assignments can cause hang

In some cases, two OID assignments that were defined as subnodes of each other could cause an infinite loop during MIB validation. Measures were implemented to fix the cases where this could still occur.

4392: Startup crash when no physical interfaces are detectable

When no ethernet interfaces were detectable, a bad pointer when generating the message about needing a license key (that includes the list of Host IDs) could lead to a crash or corrupted error message at startup.

4393: Windows: Startup crash obtaining Host IDs under Windows 7

A buffer overrun could lead to a crash at startup when using using one of the fallback methods to obtain the list of available Host IDs (particularly, but not necessarily, under Windows 7).

4187: Duplicate sysUpTime or snmpTrapOID in translated v1 traps

The SDK translates received SNMPv1 traps into SNMPv2 format by converting the v1 trap fields into into snmpTrapOID and sysUpTime varbinds. However, if the sending agent included varbinds with these OIDs already (e.g. due to translation by proxy along the way) then multiples of these varbinds could appear. The received varbinds are now discarded in favor of the ones generated by the SDK’s translation.

MIB Views 1.7 is now available. Changes in this release include:

3173: Save/restore window geometry across sessions

The size and position of the MIB Views main application window is now saved on exit and restored at launch, rather than using a fixed size/position at each new session.

276: Support loading MIBs/PIBs directly from RFCs

Like MIB Smithy, you can now add MIBs to MIB Views by directly adding the RFC text file. MIB Views will extract and load any MIB modules it finds.

3491: Add firefox to browsers tried for help

When opening html help files from MIB Views, which currently uses whatever browser is available on the system, FireFox is now among the browsers that are tried.

520: Save agent settings for defaults between MIB Views sessions

MIB Views will now save and restore last connected agent address, port, version, username, timeout, and retries, to use for defaults at the next session.

2460: Default window size on Windows with multiple displays

The default window size is no longer relative to the desktop size, but rather a fixed size at first launch (and saved/restored per case 3173). On multiple displays this caused the window to span all of them at every launch.

522: Auto-completion not happening in Query OID field

Auto-completion of typed names is now supported in the Query Tool’s OID field, as is with the “Go to” bar at the top of the application.

2688: Can’t recall main window when only trap monitor left open

The Trap Watch tool’s Window menu now has entries for opening the main application window. Previously if all windows were closed except the Trap Watch, you’d need to exit and relaunch the application to get the main window back.

3523: Linux: Application won’t launch outside terminal

Under Linux, the application wouldn’t launch from the file explorer or as a regular application icon added to the menus. It would only launch from the terminal/CLI or as a “terminal application” due to an exception at startup when trying to determine the user ID.

3540: get-bulk endOfMibView handling problem

SNMPv2/v3 exceptions in varbinds will no longer be treated as values to be formatted and displayed in the various lists/tables. Previously something like “endOfMibView” could end up rendered as (for example) a bogus DateAndTime value.

3465: Whitespace in snmp query tool name/oid field causes error

White space is no longer allowed in the SNMP Query tool’s OID field or the “Go to” entry at the top of the application. Previously, entering white space would cause an application error.

2707: Clarify “Invalid OBJECT IDENTIFIER” error

A generic “Invalid OBJECT IDENTIFIER” was given when trying to issue an SNMP request with a symbolic OID that couldn’t be fully resolved. It will now instead give an “Unable to resolve OID” error that indicates which parent couldn’t be resolved and likely reason.

2708: Clarify “search string is ambiguous” errors

The generic “record search string is ambiguous” error is replaced with an error indicating which string is ambiguous, along with a list of non-ambiguous matches.

3524: Randomize starting request-id and message-id

The starting request-id and message-id for an SNMP session is now random, rather than starting at 0 for each session.

2691: Improve randomness

Changes have been made to the use of random numbers (e.g. for SNMPv3 authentication/privacy salts) to make them more random.

3525: Matching Reports to Requests if agent doesn’t parse PDU

When matching SNMPv3 reports to pending requests, only the message-id will be used instead of also matching the request-id. SNMPv3 allows for the possibility that the security model may trigger a report to be sent back by an agent to a manager without the request PDU being parsed, which would cause the request to time out rather than processing the report.

3526: Update time window for resent SNMPv3 messages on timeout

When SNMPv3 requests time out, they will no longer be sent with the same engineBoots/engineTime values when resent; instead the time window will be updated and the message re-encoded (and re-encrypted/authenticated if applicable).

310: Clarify dependency failure for duplicate module names

When a module name referenced by MODULE-COMPLIANCE or AGENT-CAPABILITIES is ambiguous, the validator message incorrectly indicated that it was an IMPORTS module reference that was ambiguous.