                       SNMP support for Perl 5
                       -----------------------

                Copyright (c) 1995-2023, Simon Leinen
                         All rights reserved

This program is free software; you can redistribute it under the
"Artistic License" included in this distribution (file "Artistic").

               Author: Simon Leinen  <simon.leinen@switch.ch>
                            Contributors:
                 Tobias Oetiker  <tobi@oetiker.ch>
               Matthew Trunnell  <matter@media.mit.edu>
                 Andrzej Toboła  <san@iem.pw.edu.pl>
                      Dave Rand  <dlr@Bungi.com>
                   Heine Peters  <peters@dkrz.de>
                      Yufang HU  <yhu@casc.com>
               Philippe Simonet  <Philippe.Simonet@swisscom.com>
              Daniel L. Needles  <dan_needles@INS.COM>
                        Dan Cox  <dcox@lexmark.com>
               Iouri Pakhomenko  <pakhomenko@gmd.de>
                   Niels Bakker  <niels@euro.net>
                  Mike Mitchell  <mcm@unx.sas.com>
                   Alan Nichols  <Alan.Nichols@Ebay.Sun.COM>
                  Mike McCauley  <mikem@open.com.au>
                Andrew W. Elble  <elble@icculus.nsg.nwu.edu>
                Paul E. Erkkila  <pee@gblx.net>
                 Johannes Demel  <demel@zid.tuwien.ac.at>
                 Rik Hoorelbeke  <rik.hoorelbeke@pandora.be>
                 Brett T Warden  <wardenb@eluminant.com>
                 Alistair Mills  <alistair@alizta.com>
                  Bert Driehuis  <driehuis@playbeing.org>
                 Michael Deegan  <michael@cnspc18.murdoch.edu.au>
           Jakob Ilves (/IlvJa)  <jakob.ilves@oracle.com>
                   Jan Kasprzak  <kas@informatics.muni.cz>
               Valerio Bontempi  <v.bontempi@inwind.it>
                Lorenzo Colitti  <lorenzo@colitti.com>
                   Joerg Kummer  <JOERG.KUMMER@Roche.COM>
           Christopher J. Tengi  <tengi@CS.Princeton.EDU>
                    Luc Pauwels  <Luc.Pauwels@xalasys.com>
                   Milen Pavlov  <milen@batmbg.com>
       Andrew Cornford-Matheson  <andrew.matheson@corenetworks.com>
                   Gerry Dalton  <gerry.dalton@consolidated.com>
                 Jan van Keulen  <cologne@email.com>
               Armin Wolfermann  <armin@wolfermann.org>
                     Allan Jude  <allanjude@freebsd.org>
            Michal Josef Špaček  <michal.josef.spacek@gmail.com>

        http://www.switch.ch/misc/leinen/snmp/perl/index.html

This archive contains Perl 5 modules SNMP_Session.pm and BER.pm,
which, when used together, provide rudimentary access to remote SNMP
(v1/v2) agents.

This module differs from existing SNMP packages in that it is
completely stand-alone, i.e. you don't need to have another SNMP
package such as Net-SNMP.  It is also written entirely in Perl, so you
don't have to compile any C modules.  It uses the Perl 5 Socket.pm
module and should therefore be very portable, even to non-Unix systems.

The SNMP operations currently supported are "get", "get-next", and
"set", as well as trap generation and reception.

For an excellent example of the type of application this is useful
for, see Tobias Oetiker's ``mrtg'' (Multi Router Traffic Grapher)
tool: <URL:http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/>

                                Usage
                                .....

See the EXAMPLES section of the POD documentation in SNMP_Session.pm.

                             Future Plans
                             ............

                            SNMPv3 Support

The code could first be restructured to follow the modularization
proposed in RFC 2271 (An Architecture for Describing SNMP Management
Frameworks).  The existing SNMPv1 and SNMPv2c support must somehow be
retrofitted to this framework.  Later, one could add support for
SNMPv3 PDU formats and for user-based security.

                          Higher-Level APIs

The current programming interface is very close to the level of SNMP
operations and PDUs.  For actual management applications, there are
probably more convenient interfaces that could be defined.
