Network Management &

Security
Lecture-5
 Today’s topics
o Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1)
o SNMP Management Information Base
 Abstract Data types
o ASN.1 is a notation for data types and their
values. We can classify types into four categories
1.Simple: These are atomic types, with no
components
2.Structured: A structured type has components
3.Tagged: These are types derived from other
types
4.Other: This category includes CHOICE and ANY
types
 Abstract Data types
o Every ASN.1 data type, with the exception of
CHOICE and ANY has an associated tag . The tag
consists of a class name and a non-negative
integer tag number
o There are four classes of data types and four
classes of tags
o UNIVERSAL
o APPLICATION
o Context-specific
o Private
 Examples
[ APPLICATION 0], APPLICATION is the class and
0 is the tag number
[UNIVERSAL 4], UNIVERSAL is the class and 4 is
the tag number
 UNIVERSAL CLASS TAG
ASSIGNMENTS
Basic Types Object Types
UNIVERSAL 1 BOOLEAN UNIVERSAL 6 OBJECT IDENTIFIER
UNIVERSAL 2 INTEGER UNIVERSAL 7 Object descriptor
UNIVERSAL 3 BIT STRING
UNIVERSAL 4 OCTET STRING
UNIVERSAL 9 REAL
UNIVERSAL 10 ENUMERATED
 UNIVERSAL CLASS TAG
ASSIGNMENTS
Character String Types Miscellenous Types
UNIVERSAL 18 NumericString UNIVERSAL 5 NULL
UNIVERSAL 19 PrintableString UNIVERSAL 8 EXTERNAL
UNIVERSAL 20 TeletexString UNIVERSAL 23 UTCTime
UNIVERSAL 21 VideotexString UNIVERSAL 24 GeneralizedTime
UNIVERSAL 22 IA5String UNIVERSAL 11-15 Reserved
UNIVERSAL 25 GraphicString UNIVERSAL 28 Reserved
UNIVERSAL 26 VisibleString
UNIVERSAL 27 GeneralString
 UNIVERSAL CLASS TAG
ASSIGNMENTS
Structured Types

UNIVERSAL 16 SEQUENCE AND SEQUENCE-OF

UNIVERSAL 17 SET AND SET-OF
 Abstract Data types
o Simple types:
o A simple type is one defined by directly specifying
the set of its values.
o All other types are built up from the simple types
o Structured types:
o Structured types are those consisting of
components. ASN.1 provides four structured types
for building complex data types from simple data
types
o SEQUENCE, SEQUENCE OF, SET, SET OF
 Structured types
o The SEQUENCE and SEQUENCE OF types are
used to define an ordered list of values of one
or more other data types
o A SEQUENCE consists of an ordered list of
elements, each specifying a type and optionally
a name.
o The notation for defining the SEQUENCE type is
as follows
SequenceType :: = SEQUENCE {ElementTypeList} | SEQUENCE { }
ElementTypeList :: = ElementType | ElementTypeList, ElementType
 Structured types
o Example for SEQUENCE Type

DeviceDiskValueEntry ::= SEQUENCE {

deviceDiskIndex INTEGER,
deviceDiskTrapEnabled TruthValue,
deviceDiskStatus DiskStatus,
deviceDiskTimeStamp TimeStamp,
deviceDiskVendor DisplayString,
deviceDiskProduct DisplayString,
deviceDiskRevision DisplayString,
deviceDiskSerialN DisplayString,
deviceDiskBlockSize Counter32,
deviceDiskBlockCount Counter32
}
 Structured types
o A SEQUENCE OF consist of an ordered,
variable number of elements, all of one type
o A SEQUENCE OF definition has the following
form:
SequenceOfType ::= SEQUENCE OF Type | SEQUENCE
 Structured type
o A SET is similar to a SEQUENCE except that the order
of the element is not significant, the elements may be
arranged in any order when they are encoded into a
specific representation.
o A SET definition has the following form:
SetType ::= SET { ElementTypeList} | SET { }
o A SET OF is an unordered, variable number of
elements, all of one type. A SET OF definition
has the following form:
SetOfType :: = SE OF Type | SET
 Data Structure Example- Personnel record
Informal description ASN.1 description
Name: John P Smith PersonnelRecord ::= [ APPLICATION 0] IMPLICIT SET {
Title: Director Name,
Employee Number: 51 title[0] VisibleString,
Date of Hire: 17 September 1972 number EmployeeNumber,
Name of Spouse: Mary T Smith dateOfHire [1] data,
Number of children: 2 nameofSpouse [2] Name,
children [3] IMPLICIT SEQUENCE OF ChildInformation { }
Child Information DEFAULT { } }
Name: Ralph T Smith ChildInformation :: = SET {
Date of birth: 11 November 1957 Name,
Child Information DateofBirth [0] Date}
Name : Susan B Jones Name:: = [APPLICATION 1] IMPLICIT SEQUENCE {
Date of birth: 17 July 1959 givenName VisibleString,
initial VisibleString,
family VisibleString }
EmployeeNumber ::= [APPLICATION 2] IMPLICIT INTEGER

Date :: = [APPLICATION 3] IMPLICIT VisibleString --YYYYMMDD

SNMP Management Information
Base (MIB)
 SNMP MIB
• The foundation of any Network Management
System is a database containing information
about elements to be managed
• In TCP/IP and OSI (Open System
Interconnection) environments, the database
is referred to as a Management Information
Base (MIB)
• Each resource to be managed is an object and
MIB is the structured collection of such objects
 SNMP MIB
• Each node in the system will maintain an MIB
that reflects the status of the managed
resources at that node
• A network management entity (NME) can
monitor the resources at that node by reading
the value of objects in the MIB and may
control the resources at that node by
modifying those values
 SNMP MIB
• In order to serve the need of NMS, it must meet
two objectives
1. The object or objects used to represent a particular
resource must be same at each node. If different
nodes select different pairs for storage, it is difficult
to write a simple protocol to access this
information
2. A common scheme for representation must be
used to support interoperability
• The second objective is addressed by defining a
structure of management information (SMI)
 SMI
• The structure of management information is
defined in RFC1155
• It defines the general framework within which
a MIB can be defined and contructed
• The SMI identifies the data types that can be
used in the MIB and how resources within the
MIB are represented and named
• SMI avoids complex data types to simplify the
task of implementation and to enhance
interoperability
 SMI
• To provide a standardized way of representing
management information, the SMI must
provide standardized techniques for:

– Defining the structure of a particular MIB

– Defining individual objects, including the syntax
and value of each object
– Encoding object values
 MIB Structure
• Associated with each type of object in an MIB
is an identifier of the ASN. 1 type OBJECT
IDENTIFIER
• The Identifier serve to name the object
• The value associated with the type OBJECT
IDENTIFIER is hierarchical
• Starting from the root, there are three nodes
at the first level:
iso, ccitt and joint-iso-ccitt
 MIB Structure
• As shown in previous slide, the SMI documents
defines four nodes under the internet node
1. directory: This subtree is reserved for future use
2. mgmt: This subtree is used for objects defined in
IAB –approved documents (Internet Activity
Board)
3. experimental: This subtree is used to identify
objects used in Internet experiments
4. private: This subtree is used to identify objects
defined unilaterally