12. Definition of Agent Net if

12 Definition of Agent Net if

Figure 12.1: The Purpose of Agent Net if

The Network Interface (Net if) process delivers SNMP PDUs to a master agent, and receives SNMP PDUs from the master agent. The most common behaviour of a Net if process is that is receives bytes from a network, decodes them into an SNMP PDU, which it sends to a master agent. When the master agent has processed the PDU, it sends a response PDU to the Net if process, which encodes the PDU into bytes and transmits the bytes onto the network.

However, that simple behaviour can be modified in numerous ways. For example, the Net if process can apply some kind of encrypting/decrypting scheme on the bytes or act as a proxy filter, which sends some packets to a proxy agent and some packets to the master agent.

It is also possible to write your own Net if process. The default Net if process is implemented in the module snmpa_net_if and it u