Internet Draft Mark Bakke Cisco Standards Track Expires March 2003 September 2002 DHCP Option for SNMP Notifications Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved. Abstract The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol [RFC1531] provides a method for a host to retrieve common configuration parameters at boot time. These include the host's IP address, default gateway, subnet mask, DNS server, and other useful things. When a host is booted from the network, it does not have access to these configuration parameters from its local or network disk right away; it relies instead on DHCP to provide them. One such parameter that is not yet provided is a list of IP hosts to which to send SNMP Bakke Expires March 2003 [Page 1] Internet Draft DHCP Option for SNMP Notifications September 2002 notifications [RFC1448] during the boot process, particularly if the boot fails. As the host is already gleaning similar information from DHCP, a new option to specify these SNMP "trap" hosts appears to be the simplest method to gain this information. Hosts not booting from the network benefit as well, since SNMP notification hosts can now be configured centrally through DHCP. This document describes a proposed DHCP option that specifies a list of SNMP notification hosts to which SNMP notifications should be sent. Acknowledgements This draft was produced as a result of discussions with Keith McCloghrie. 1. Terminology The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. 2. DHCP Option The snmp-trap-host option specifies a list of IP addresses to which SNMP notifications should be sent. SNMP notification hosts SHOULD be listed in order of preference; an implementation SHOULD send each notification to as many of the hosts listed as possible. Its format is identical to the router option [RFC2132]. The code for this option is TBD. The minimum length is 4 octets, and the length MUST be a multiple of 4. Code Len Address 1 Address 2 +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-- | TBD | n | a1 | a2 | a3 | a4 | a1 | a2 | ... +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-- 3. Security Considerations DHCP currently provides no authentication or security mechanisms. Potential exposures to attack are discussed in section 7 of the DHCP protocol specification [RFC 2131]. Bakke Expires March 2003 [Page 2] Internet Draft DHCP Option for SNMP Notifications September 2002 4. IANA Considerations IANA is requested to allocate a DHCP option number for this option. 5. Summary This document describes a DHCP option for configuring a list of SNMP notification hosts. 6. Normative References [RFC2026] S. Bradner, "The Internet Standards Process", RFC 2026, October 1996. [RFC2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2131] R. Droms, "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol", RFC 2131, March 1997. [RFC1448] J. Case, K. McCloghrie, M. Rose, S. Waldbusser, "Protocol Operations for SNMPv2", RFC 1448, April 1993. 7. Informative References [RFC2132] S. Alexander, R. Droms, "DHCP Options and BOOTP Vendor Extensions", RFC 2132, March 1997. [RFC2939] R. Droms, "Procedures and IANA Guidelines for Definition of New DHCP Options and Message Types", RFC 2939, September 2000. Author Contact Information Mark Bakke Cisco Systems, Inc. 6450 Wedgwood Road Maple Grove, MN USA 55311 Voice: +1 763-398-1000 E-Mail: mbakke@cisco.com Bakke Expires March 2003 [Page 3] Internet Draft DHCP Option for SNMP Notifications September 2002 8. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved. 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