SNMP Security Extended by Service Pack 4

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Service Pack 4 has added extended community security to the SNMP service. Now, both the community name is checked for authentication and the host can define a level of access. These levels of access are closely aligned with the MIB access variable. The community security levels are as follows:

• NONE - Cannot read or write any variables.
  
• NOTIFY - An unsolicited message issent to an SNMP management system.
  
• READ-ONLY - Cannot set any values.
  
• READ-WRITE - Can read or write any variables that the MIB definition allows.
  
• READ-CREATE - Allows the creation of a new row.

The interaction of the MIB access variable and the community security level can be seen in the following example:

If your community access level is set to READ-ONLY and the MIB access variable is set at READ-WRITE, the following operations would be valid: get-request, get-next-request, get-response, and trap. Note that the set-request is blocked by the more restrictive community access level. So, the combination of these two security parameters determines the level of functionality the user has with SNMP.