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diff --git a/docs/source/development.rst b/docs/source/development.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abe9cba --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/source/development.rst @@ -0,0 +1,100 @@ + +Further development +------------------- + +Although PySNMP is already a mature software and it is being used at many +places, the ultimate goal of the project is to implement most of the useful +features that SNMP standards can offer. What follows is a list of most +prominent missing features that PySNMP developers are planning to put their +hands on in the future. + +PySNMP library +++++++++++++++ + +#. Built-in MIB parser. PySNMP uses a data model of its own to work with + information contained in MIB files. To convert ASN.1-based MIB texts + into Python modules, an off-line, third-party tool is employed. As it + turns out, this approach has two major drawback: one is that PySNMP + users may need to pre-process MIB texts to use them with their + PySNMP-based applications. Another is that LibSMI's Python driver + seems to miss some information carried by MIBs. Thus the solution would + be to write another MIB parser and code generator which would produce + PySNMP compliant Python code right from MIB text files all by itself. + + **Done:** see `PySMI project <http://pysmi.sf.net>`_ in conjuction with the latest PySNMP codebase. + +#. Reverse MIB index. The variable-bindings received by the system whilst + in Manager role could be post-processed using the information kept in + MIB files to include human-friendly OIDs names, tables indices and + values representation. However, there is currently no provisioning in + the PySNMP system for locating and loading up MIB files containing + additional information on arbitrary OIDs. So the idea is to maintain + an OID-to-MIB index to let PySNMP load relevant MIB automatically on + demand. + +#. Stream sockets support. Currently, PySNMP transport subsystem only + supports datagram-type network sockets. That covers UDP-over-IPv4 and + UDP-over-IPv6. However, SNMP engine can potentially run over + stream-oriented protocols what would let it support TCP-over-IPv4, + TCP-over-IPv6 and SSL/TSL transports. Neither of these is currently + implemented with PySNMP. + +#. AgentX implementation. We anticipate many uses of this. For instance, + having AgentX protocol support in pure-Python would let us write AgentX + modules in pure-Python and attach them to high-performance Net-SNMP + Agent. Or we could build and maintain a fully-featured, stand-alone + PySNMP-based Agent so that users would write their own AgentX extensions + what would comprise a complete SNMP Agent solution at lesser effort. + +#. A DBMS-based SMI. Currently implemented SMI takes shape of live Python + objects that let user hook up his own handler on any existing Managed + Object Instance. That's flexible and working approach in many cases, + however sometimes, for instance when Management Instrumentation is + inherently DBMS-based, it may be more efficient to move the entire + SMI/MIB subsystem into a database. PySNMP engine would talk to it + through its simple and well defined SMI API. + + +Stand-alone PySNMP-based tools +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + +#. SNMP Proxy Forwarder. That would be a stand-alone, application-level + proxy service supporting all SNMP versions, multiple network transports, + Command and Notification SNMP message types. Its anticipated features + include extensive configuration facilities, fine-graned access + control and logging. + + **Done:** see `SNMP Proxy Forwarder <http://snmpfwd.sf.net>`_. + +#. SNMP Trap Receiver. We see this application as a simple yet flexible + SNMP TRAP collector. It would listen on network sockets of different + types receiving SNMP TRAP/INFORM notifications over any SNMP version + and putting all the details into a database and possibly triggering + external events. + +#. Database backend for SNMP Simulator. We have already built a tool for + simulating SNMP Agents based on a snapshot of their Management + Instrumentation state. Current implementation uses a plain-text file + for keeping and possibly managing the snapshot. Many users of the + Simulator software requested a value variation feature to be supported + so that simulated Agents would look live, not static. We consider this + variation and also dependencies features would be best implemented as + a relational database application. So we are planning to put some more + efforts into the Simulator project as time permits. + + **Done:** since `snmpsim-0.2.4 <http://snmpsim.sf.net>`_ + +If you need some particular feature - please, +`drop us a note <http://pysnmp.sourceforge.net/contact.html>`_ . Once we +see a greater demand in particular area, we would re-arrange our +development resources to meet it sooner. + +You could greater speed up the development of particular feature by +sponsoring it. Please get back to us to discuss details. + +Contributions to the PySNMP source code is greatly appreciated as well. +We require contributed code to run with Python 2.4 through the latest +Python version (which is 3.3 at the time of this writing). Contributed +code will be redistributed under the terms of the same +`license <http://pysnmp.sourceforge.net/license.html>`_ as PySNMP is. + |