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<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2004</year><year>2013</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
      Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
      you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
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          http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

      Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
      distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
      WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
      See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
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    <title>Manager Functional Description</title>
    <prepared></prepared>
    <responsible></responsible>
    <docno></docno>
    <approved></approved>
    <checked></checked>
    <date></date>
    <rev></rev>
    <file>snmp_manager_funct_descr.xml</file>
  </header>

  <section>
    <title>Features</title>
    <marker id="features"></marker>
    <p>The manager provided with the tool is a lightweight manager
      that basically provides a means to communicate with agents.</p>
    <p>It does not really implement any management capabilities by 
      itself. That is up to the <em>user</em>. 
      </p>
    <p>A <em>user</em> in this context is basically a module implementing
      the <seealso marker="snmpm_user">snmpm_user</seealso> behaviour. 
      A <em>user</em> can issue snmp requests and receive 
      notification/traps.</p>
    <p>Agents to be accessed by the manager needs to be registered by 
      a user. Once registered, they can be accessed by all registered 
      users.</p>
    <p>Notifications/traps from an agent is delivered to the user that 
      did the registration.</p>
    <p>Any message from an agent that is not registered is delivered to 
      the <em>default user</em>.</p>
    <p>By default, the <em>default user</em> is set to the 
      <c>snmpm_user_default</c> module, which simply sends an info message
      to the error_logger. It is however highly recommended that this
      module be replaced by another that does something useful
      (see <seealso marker="snmp_config#configuration_params">configuration params</seealso> for more info).</p>
    <p>When using version 3, then (at least one) <em>usm user</em> has to 
      be registered.</p>
    <p>Requests can be issued in two different ways. Synchronous (see
      <seealso marker="snmpm#sync_set">sync_set</seealso>,
      <seealso marker="snmpm#sync_get">sync_get</seealso>, 
      <seealso marker="snmpm#sync_get_next">sync_get_next</seealso> and 
      <seealso marker="snmpm#sync_get_bulk">sync_get_bulk</seealso>)
      and asynchronous (see 
      <seealso marker="snmpm#async_set">async_set</seealso>,
      <seealso marker="snmpm#async_get">async_get</seealso>, 
      <seealso marker="snmpm#async_get_next">async_get_next</seealso> and  
      <seealso marker="snmpm#async_get_bulk">async_get_bulk</seealso>). 
      With synchronous 
      the snmp reply is returned by the function. With asynchronous,
      the reply will instead be delivered through a call to one of the
      <c>handle_pdu</c> callback function defined by the 
      <seealso marker="snmpm_user#handle_pdu">handle_pdu</seealso> 
      behaviour.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Operation</title>
    <marker id="operation"></marker>
    <p>The following steps are needed to get the manager running:</p>
    <list type="ordered">
      <item>
        <p>[optional] Implement the default user.</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Implement the user(s).</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Configure the application (manager).</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Start the application (manager).</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Register the user(s).</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>The user(s) register their agents.</p>
      </item>
    </list>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>MIB loading</title>
    <marker id="mib_loading"></marker>
    <p>It is possible to load mibs into the manager, but this is not 
      necessary for normal operation, and not recommended.</p>
  </section>
</chapter>

