From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Jul 25 05:29:58 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id FAA13957 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Sat, 25 Jul 1998 05:29:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from spooky.rwwa.com (rwwa.com [198.115.177.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id FAA13947 for ; Sat, 25 Jul 1998 05:29:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from witr@spooky.rwwa.com) Received: from spooky.rwwa.com (localhost.rwwa.com [127.0.0.1]) by spooky.rwwa.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA06297; Sat, 25 Jul 1998 08:29:08 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from witr@spooky.rwwa.com) Message-Id: <199807251229.IAA06297@spooky.rwwa.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: wjw@IAEhv.nl cc: witr@rwwa.com (Robert Withrow), hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SYSCTL ....... In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 24 Jul 1998 14:39:33 +0200." <199807241239.OAA03407@surf.IAE.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 08:29:08 -0400 From: Robert Withrow Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG wjw@surf.IAE.nl said: :- My major concern goes to "efficiency for lookups". Perhaps that is :- wrong, and are there other solutions. Please, educate me. In the FreeBSD space I think you are right. Like I said, I have to worry about getting router management working on 4MB boxes, along with IP, BGP, IPX, FR, etc, etc, etc... Sigh. :- You point of having a sysctl_find_oid, sounds like a very valid one, :- with the minor problem of determining the type of a field. That ties in my point about having a .mib file describe the entities. Actually there are two parts to the database: 1) The mib database itself (i.e., the data that you fetch and that gets set). 2) The "meta-mib" that tells you the type, size, oid, and other attributes about the entities. At Bay we generate the meta-mib from the .mib files (and other files that annotate the .mib file). The NMS's then read this meta-information and know everything they need to about the mib itself. :- => Also, why not provide the famous "Awesome Get Bulk" operation? :- Is there a need for that in the kernel? Isn't get_next enough? >From the point of view of a client, the Get Bulk really *is* awesome. And itis pretty trivial to implement in the agent. mike@smith.net.au said: :- Speaking of structuring this sort of thing; make sure that any :- potential implementors have a long hard look at the DMI structures. :- See http://www.dmtf.org Another question (to the community): Have the FreeBSD *architects* weigh in on the value of the sytsctl approach as opposed to, say, something like a "sysctl" filesystem (like the proc filesystem)? Also, is this interface expected to be exposed via SNMP? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA, witr@rwwa.COM To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message