Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Manager APIs

Before you use the SNMP APIs, you should read the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Support book . It describes how to configure AS/400 to use SNMP. It also discusses SNMP agents, subagents, managers, and management information base (MIBs). For information about using the SNMP APIs, see "Using the SNMP Subagent DPI API" in the book Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Support . For information about trap support, see SNMP Trap Support.

SNMP managing applications typically use APIs to establish communication with local or remote SNMP agents, and then call other APIs to retrieve or modify MIB objects managed by those agents. The OS/400 SNMP manager APIs accomplish both of these tasks within the same API. Three manager APIs are provided to perform the SNMP GET, GETNEXT, and SET operations. In general, all three APIs are blocked. That is, when the application calls these APIs, the API constructs a proper SNMP message, delivers it to the proper SNMP agent, waits, decodes the response from the agent, and delivers the information to the application. No processing occurs in the application until the API delivers this information or times out. The communications mechanism between the manager APIs and agents uses sockets. Therefore, both systems need to support sockets.

Application programmers who are writing network management applications can use the snmpGet(), snmpGetnext(), and snmpSet() SNMP APIs to retrieve and set management information base (MIB) data so that they can manage their systems and networks. Programmers should have a strong understanding of network management, SNMP, and some transport protocol such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

SNMP Manager API Functions

Figure 1-1 lists the network functions that are supported by the SNMP manager APIs.

Figure 1-1. SNMP Manager Functions

Operation	Description
snmpGet()	Retrieve MIB objects
snmpGetnext()	Retrieve next MIB object
snmpSet()	Set MIB objects

Note: These functions use header (include) files from the library QSYSINC, which is optionally installable. Make sure QSYSINC is installed on your system before using any of the functions. All of the SNMP manager APIs use header file qtomeapi.h. You can see this source in source file H, member name QTOMEAPI, in the QSYSINC library.

The following descriptions of the functions are organized in alphabetical order by function name. For examples that use the SNMP manager APIs, see Using SNMP Manager APIs--Example.