The Argent MIB Viewer allows you to create SNMP Rules from any manufacturer’s MIB files. (And Argent can create these Rules for you as well – The MIB files govern what’s possible to do or see via SNMP for a particular device.

Enter the path or use the Browse button for the path of a MIB file, then click the Load MIB button. If necessary, Dependent MIB Files are inserted (usually automatically, because Argent includes a host of standard MIB files, but manually if necessary) into the Dependent MIB Files section.

MIBs usually reference other manufacturer or RFC MIBs to reduce duplication of effort (at least on the part of the device manufacturer).

One important thing to note, however, is that when you’re creating an SNMP Trap Monitor definition, Argent MIB Viewer will only show you the Traps contained in the MIB. When used in an SNMP Rule, you won’t see the Traps, but only the OIDs is polled.

Once the MIB file loads, the OIDs are displayed in the lower section of the window. If you select any item, the human-readable description appears at the bottom of the window.

It’s always a good idea to check the description carefully, as many OID names (shown in the Name column) sound alike, and may appear to be what you want. As an example, “totalFilesSent” is one of the names in ftp.mib. By reading the description, you see that this represents the total number of files sent by the FTP server, not to the FTP server. (That’s “totalFilesReceived”.)

Select the desired OID and click OK to add it to the SNMP Rule.

See Also: SNMP Glossary