Managing the Linux kernel with AgentX: Design and Implementation

Revision with unchanged content. Network management is essential for the operation and supervision of me­dium to large computer networks. The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is the standard protocol for network management in the Internet. Or­di­nary SNMP agents are mostly monolithic, run in the user-space and often poll information from the OS kernel. This book examines to what extent the IETF standard sub-agent protocol AgentX is suitable for the management of UNIX/Linux kernel components. For this purpose, AgentX sub-agents have been implemented inside the kernel subsystem they manage. They use the AgentX protocol for communication with a master agent in user-space. With this approach, kernel subsystems can be managed in an efficient and com­pre­hen­sive way. The author describes the general design of this new in-kernel manage­ment architecture and its interface to the user-space. As an example, two kernel sub-systems, namely the network interfaces and Linux Netfilter, are implemented as MIB modules and explained. This book is intended for software developers of network and system ma­nage­ment solutions as well as researchers in this area.