Management Information Base
A Management Information Base (MIB) comprises a collection of objects in a (virtual) database used to manage entities (such as routers and switches) in a network. Internet documentation RFCs discuss MIBs, notably , "Structure and Identification of Management Information for TCP/IP based internets", and its two companions, , "Management Information Base for Network Management of TCP/IP-based internets", and , "A Simple Network Management Protocol".
SNMP, a communication protocol between management stations (consoles, for example) and managed objects, (such as routers, gateways, and switches) makes use of MIBs. Components controlled by the management console need a so-called SNMP agent -- a software module that can communicate with the SNMP manager.
SNMP uses a specified set of commands and queries. An MIB should contain information on these commands and on the target objects (controlable entities or potential sources of status information) with a view to tuning the network transport to the current needs.
Examples of MIB objects include:
- output queue length, which has the name ifOutQLen
- Address Translation table (like ARP tables) called atTable.
RFC 1066 defines these as mandatory: if an environment does not use the atTable (as in the case of DDN-X.25 units) then the atTable simply remains empty. The table object includes, of course, definitions of table entries, atEntry and information about interfaces (if) for each atEntry, etc.
