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SNMP_CONFIG(5)			   Net-SNMP			SNMP_CONFIG(5)

NAME
       snmp_config - handling of Net-SNMP configuration	files

DESCRIPTION
       The  Net-SNMP package uses various configuration	files to configure its
       applications.  This manual page merely describes	the overall nature  of
       them, so	that the other manual pages don't have to.

DIRECTORIES SEARCHED
       First  off,  there  are numerous	places that configuration files	can be
       found and read from.  By	default, the applications look for  configura-
       tion   files  in	 the  following	 4  directories,  in  order:  /usr/lo-
       cal/etc/snmp,	/usr/local/share/snmp,	  /usr/local/lib/snmp,	   and
       $HOME/.snmp.   In  each	of  these  directories,	 it  looks  for	 files
       snmp.conf,  snmpd.conf  and/or  snmptrapd.conf,	as  well  as  snmp.lo-
       cal.conf,  snmpd.local.conf  and/or  snmptrapd.local.conf. *.local.conf
       are always read last. In	this manner, there are 8 default places	a con-
       figuration file can exist for any given configuration file type.

       Additionally, the above default search path can be overridden  by  set-
       ting the	environment variable SNMPCONFPATH to a colon-separated list of
       directories  to search for.  The	path for the persistent	data should be
       included	when running applications that use persistent storage, such as
       snmpd.

       Applications will read persistent configuration files in	the  following
       order of	preference:

	      file in SNMP_PERSISTENT_FILE environment variable
	      directories in SNMPCONFPATH environment variable
	      directory	defined	by persistentDir snmp.conf variable
	      directory	in SNMP_PERSISTENT_DIR environment variable
	      default /var/net-snmp directory

       Finally,	 applications will write persistent configuration files	in the
       following order of preference:

	      file in SNMP_PERSISTENT_FILE environment variable
	      directory	defined	by persistentDir snmp.conf variable
	      directory	in SNMP_PERSISTENT_DIR environment variable
	      default /var/net-snmp directory

       Note:  When using SNMP_PERSISTENT_FILE, the filename should  match  the
       application name.  For example, /var/net-snmp/snmpd.conf.

CONFIGURATION FILE TYPES
       Each  application may use multiple configuration	files, which will con-
       figure various different	aspects	of the application.  For instance, the
       SNMP agent (snmpd) knows	how to understand configuration	directives  in
       both  the  snmpd.conf  and the snmp.conf	files.	In fact, most applica-
       tions understand	how to read  the  contents  of	the  snmp.conf	files.
       Note, however, that configuration directives understood in one file may
       not  be	understood in another file.  For further information, read the
       associated manual page with each	configuration file type.   Also,  most
       of  the	applications support a -H switch on the	command	line that will
       list the	configuration files it will look for  and  the	directives  in
       each one	that it	understands.

       The  snmp.conf configuration file is intended to	be a application suite
       wide configuration file that supports directives	that  are  useful  for
       controlling  the	 fundamental  nature  of all of	the SNMP applications,
       such as how they	all manipulate and parse the textual SNMP MIB files.

SWITCHING CONFIGURATION	TYPES IN MID-FILE
       It's possible to	switch in mid-file the	configuration  type  that  the
       parser  is  supposed  to	 be reading.  Since that sentence doesn't make
       much sense, lets	give you an example: say that you wanted  to  turn  on
       packet  dumping output for the agent by default,	but you	didn't want to
       do that for the rest of the applications	(ie, snmpget, snmpwalk,	 ...).
       Normally	 to enable packet dumping in the configuration file you'd need
       to put a	line like:

	      dumpPacket true

       into the	snmp.conf file.	 But, this would turn it on for	all of the ap-
       plications.  So,	instead, you can put the same line in  the  snmpd.conf
       file so that it only applies to the snmpd daemon.  However, you need to
       tell  the parser	to expect this line.  You do this by putting a special
       type specification token	inside a [] set.  In other words, inside  your
       snmpd.conf file you could put the above snmp.conf directive by adding a
       line like so:

	      [snmp] dumpPacket	true

       This  tells  the	 parser	to parse the above line	as if it were inside a
       snmp.conf file instead of an snmpd.conf file.  If you want to  parse  a
       bunch  of  lines	 rather	 than  just  one then you can make the context
       switch apply to the remainder of	the file or  until  the	 next  context
       switch directive	by putting the special token on	a line by itself:

	      #	make this file handle snmp.conf	tokens:
	      [snmp]
	      dumpPacket true
	      logTimestamp true
	      #	return to our original snmpd.conf tokens:
	      [snmpd]
	      rocommunity mypublic

       The  same  approach  can	 be used to set	configuration directives for a
       particular client application (or group of applications).  For example,
       any program that	uses the 'snmp_parse_args()' call to  handle  command-
       line  arguments	(including  the	standard command-line tools shipped as
       part of the Net-SNMP distributions) will	automatically read the	config
       file  'snmpapp.conf'.  To set library-level settings for	these applica-
       tions (but not other more-specific tools), use  configuration  such  as
       the following:

	      [snmp] defCommunity myCommunity

       for a single directive, or

	      #	make this file handle snmp.conf	tokens:
	      [snmp]
	      defCommunity myCommunity
	      defVersion   2c
	      #	return to our original snmpapp.conf tokens:
	      [snmpapp]

       for  multiple  settings.	 Similarly for any other application token (as
       passed to init_snmp()).

COMMENTS
       Any lines beginning with	the character '#' in the  configuration	 files
       are treated as a	comment	and are	not parsed.

INCLUDING OTHER	CONFIGURATION FILES
       It is possible to include other configuration files for processing dur-
       ing normal configuration	file processing.:

	      #	include	site specific config
	      includeFile site.conf

       This will load the specified configuration file.	The
       path to file must be either absolute, starting with '/',
       or relative. The	relative path is then relative to the directory
       where the parent	file with 'includeFile'	directive resides.

       The included file name does not need to have '.conf' suffix.

	      #	include	a all *.conf files in a	directory
	      includeDir /etc/snmp/config.d

       This will search	specified directory for	all files with '.conf'
       suffix and process them as if they were included	using includeFile
       directive. The configuration files are not processed in any particular
       order.

       The specified directory must be absolute	directory path.

API INTERFACE
       Information  about  writing C code that makes use of this system	in ei-
       ther the	agent's	MIB modules or in applications can  be	found  in  the
       netsnmp_config_api(3) manual page.

SEE ALSO
       snmpconf(1), netsnmp_config_api(3), snmp.conf(5), snmpd.conf(5)

V5.9.4.pre2			  08 Mar 2010			SNMP_CONFIG(5)

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