Re: [HACKERS] Tree type, how best to impliment?

Terry Mackintosh wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> Well, as it logically mimics a directory structure, I finally went with a
> '/' and full names instead of numbers.

Can't say I blame you.

> And as there were no takers to help improve my understanding of how to
> work with the SPI stuff, and as the docs on it are not very extensive, I
> finally did the referincial integrity stuff for cross linking categories
> at the application lever, where it was realatively simple to write.
> 'cross links' == symbolic links in a file system. In fact, logically
> speaking, it is a file system.
>
> I don't know what an 'MIB' is, but if this sort of thing is what you need,
> then I can work with you, as I already have the details worked out, and I
> would love to impliment some of the now-app-level-details on the database
> side, where they belong.

MIB stands for Managemnet Information Base.
The Simple Network Management Protocol defines a 'database' of
information
about the devices that are to managed called a MIB. Each device as a
'OID'
that represents a traversal of a tree structure.
http://www.dordt.edu:457/NetAdminG/snmpC.smi.html
is a very short intro to the tree structure.
Each node gets a numerical label and an optional alpha label. The
'official'
OID for the node is the numeric labels for all ancestor nodes starting
at
the root, strung together with dots between them. (sound familiar?).
You can string together the alpha labels to create a symbolic OID. If
the
alpha label is unique, it is even permitted to use just the alpha label
of
the node of interest. This is actually useful. The top layers of the
tree
are set by the standards commitees. The local MIB is almost always a
proper
subtree of the 'internet' node of the standard tree. So, you can start
your
naming at 'internet' instead of having to alwas specify [ iso org dod
internet ... ]

We have a PostgreSQL database that keeps our inventory of routers,
desktops,
etc. The MIB however, is editted by hand. My ultimate goal is to be able
to generate the MIB from data stored in the database.

I'm afraid I am somewhat time constrained at the moment. Haven't even
upgraded
to 6.4 yet. My boss seems to think I ought to do what _he_ wants me to
do.
Oh, well.

--------------
Mark Hollomon
mhh(at)nortelnetworks(dot)com