One document matched: draft-schoenw-nmrg-snmp-trace-definitions-00.txt




NMRG                                                    G. van den Broek
Internet-Draft                                      University of Twente
Intended status: Informational                          J. Schoenwaelder
Expires: July 11, 2008                          Jacobs University Bremen
                                                                 A. Pras
                                                    University of Twente
                                                               M. Harvan
                                                              ETH Zurich
                                                         January 8, 2008


                    SNMP Trace Analysis Definitions
            draft-schoenw-nmrg-snmp-trace-definitions-00.txt

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   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2008).









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Abstract

   The Network Management Research Group (NMRG) started an activity to
   collect traces of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) from
   operational networks.  To analyze these traces, it is necessary to
   split potentially large traces into more manageable pieces that make
   it easier to deal with large data sets and simplify the analysis of
   the data.

   This document provides some common definitions that have been found
   useful for implementing tools to support trace analysis.  This
   document mainly serves as a reference for the definitions underlying
   these tools and it is not meant to explain all the motivation and
   reasoning behind the definitions.  Some of this background
   information can be found in other research papers.


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   3.  Traces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   4.  Flows  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   5.  Slices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   6.  Slice Prefix - (more thoughts needed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   7.  Slice Sets - (more thoughts needed)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   8.  Walks - (more thoughts needed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   9.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   10. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
   11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     12.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     12.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
   Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 26
















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1.  Introduction

   The Simple Network Management Protocol (SMMP) was introduced in the
   late 1980s.  Since then, several protocol changes have taken place,
   which have eventually led to what is known today as the SNMP version
   3 framework (SNMPv3) [RFC3410][RFC3411].  Extensive use of SNMP has
   led to significant practical experience by both network operators and
   researchers.  However, up until now only little research has been
   done on characterizing and modeling SNMP traffic.

   Since recently, network researchers are in the possession of network
   traces, including SNMP traces captured on operational networks.  The
   availability of SNMP traces enables research on characterizing and
   modeling real world SNMP traffic.  However, experience with SNMP
   traces has shown that the traces must be large enough in order to
   make proper observations.  A more detailed motivation for collecting
   SNMP traces and guidelines how to capture SNMP traces can be found in
   [ID-IRTF-NMRG-SNMP-MEASURE].

   Unfortunately, the analysis of large SNMP traces can take a large
   amount of processing time.  Therefore, it is often desirable to focus
   the analysis on smaller, relevant sections of a trace.  This in turn
   requires a proper way to identify these smaller sections of a trace.
   This document describes a number of identifiable sections within a
   trace which make specific research on these smaller sections more
   practical.  The following figure shows the various sections of traces
   and how they relate to each other.

              +----------------+ 1     1..* +-----------+
              | Slice Set Type |------------| Slice Set |
              +----------------+  <of_type  +-----------+
                                                   | 1
                                                   |
                                                   | ^belongs_to
                                                   |
                                                   | 1..*
      +-------+ 1     0..* +------+ 1     0..* +-------+
      | Trace |------------| Flow |------------| Slice |
      +-------+  contains> +------+  contains> +-------+
          | 1                                      ^
          |                                        |
          | ^belongs_to                            | ^is_a
          |                                        |
          | 0..*                                   |
     +---------+                               +-------+
     | Message |                               | Walk  |
     +---------+                               +-------+




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   This document defines the various entities (boxes) shown in the above
   figure.  These definitions can be implemented by tools that can split
   SNMP traces into smaller sections for further analysis.

   The most central entity in the figure above is an SNMP trace,
   consisting of a potentially large set of SNMP messages.  An SNMP
   trace is the result of recording SNMP traffic on a specific network
   for a specific time duration.  Such a trace may, depending on the
   number of hosts in the respective network, contain SNMP messages
   exchanged between possibly many different SNMP engines.  The messages
   contained in a trace may be represented in different formats.  For
   the purpose of this document, the simple comma separated values (CSV)
   format defined in [ID-IRTF-NMRG-SNMP-MEASURE] contains sufficient
   information to split a trace into smaller sections.

   The SNMP messages belonging to an SNMP trace may have been exchanged
   between many different SNMP engines running on different hosts.
   Therefore, a first obvious way of separating a trace into smaller
   sets of SNMP messages is the separation of a trace into flows.  Each
   flow contains only those SNMP messages of an SNMP trace that have
   been exchanged between two network endpoints.  Such a separation may
   be necessary in case one wants to analyze specific SNMP traffic
   characteristics (e.g., number of agents managed by a management
   station) and wants to rule out network endpoint specific behaviour
   (e.g., different SNMP management stations may have different polling
   configurations).

   Flows within traces can still be quite large in terms of the number
   of messages they contain.  Therefore, it is necessary to split a flow
   into even smaller sections called slices.  A slice contains all SNMP
   messages of a given flow that are related to each other in time and
   referenced information.  Splitting a flow into slices makes it
   possible to separate SNMP messages within traces that belong to each
   other, like for example all messages that belong to a single polling
   instance involving a single manager and a single agent.

   A slice may contain, for instance, the exchanged SNMP messages
   between an agent and a manager, which polls that agent in a single
   polling instance.  The manager may be configured to poll multiple
   agents on a periodic basis.  Therefore, multiple slices, which are
   possibly part of multiple flows, may all be related to each other,
   because they comprise a single polling instance, initiated by a
   single manager.  The combined set of these related slices form slice
   sets.

   The described manager might poll the same agent(s) on a periodic
   basis (e.g., every few minutes).  This would result in multiple
   slices sets that are very similar to each other.  In such a case,



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   these slice sets will be considered to be of the same slice set type.

   Slices can be of a specific form.  For example, slices containing a
   sequence of linked GetNext or GetBulk requests are commonly called an
   SNMP walk.  Note that only a subset of all slices will be walks.














































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2.  Messages

   SNMP messages carry PDUs associated with well defined specific
   protocol operations [RFC3416].  The PDUs can be used to classify SNMP
   messages.  Following are a number of definitions that help to
   classify SNMP messages based on the PDU contained in them.  These
   definitions will be used later on in this document.

   Notation: Let M be a message.  We denote the properties of M as
   follows:

      M.type    = operation type of message M (get, getnext, ...)
      M.class   = class of message M (according to RFC 3411)
      M.tsrc    = transport layer source endpoint of message M
      M.tdst    = transport layer destination endpoint of message M
      M.nsrc    = network layer source endpoint of message M
      M.ndst    = network layer destination endpoint of message M
      M.reqid   = request identifier of message M
      M.time    = capture timestamp of message M
      M.oids    = OIDs listed in varbind list of message M
      M.values  = values listed in varbind list of message M

   Note that the properties of a message can be easily extracted from
   the exchange formats defined in RFC XXXX [ID-IRTF-NMRG-SNMP-MEASURE].

   Definition (read request message): A read request message is a
   message M containing a PDU of type GetRequest, GetNextRequest, or
   GetBulkRequest.

   Definition (write request message): A write request message is a
   message M containing a PDU of type SetRequest.

   Definition (notification request message): A notification request
   message is a message M containing a PDU of type InformRequest.

   Definition (notification message): A notification message is a
   message M containing a PDU of type Trap or InformRequest.

   Definition (request message): A request message is a message M which
   is either a read request message, a write request message, or a
   notification request message.

   Definition (response message): A response message is a message M
   containing a PDU of type Response or of type Report.

   Note that Report messages are treated like Response messages since
   the SNMPv3 specifications currently use Report messages only as an
   error reporting mechanism, always triggered by the processing of some



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   request messages.  In case future SNMP versions or extensions use
   Report messages without having a request triggering the generation of
   Report messages, we may have to revisit the definition above.

   Definition (non-response message): A non-response message is a
   message M which is either a read request message, a write request
   message, or a notification message.

   Definition (command message): A command message is a message M which
   is either a read request message or a write request message.

   Definition (command group messages): A set of command group messages
   consists of all messages M satisfying either of the following two
   conditions:

   (C1)   M is a command message

   (C2)   M is a response message and there exists a command message C
          such that the following holds:

             M.reqid = C.reqid
             M.tdst  = C.tsrc
             M.tsrc  = C.tdst
             (M.time - C.time) < t

   The parameter t defines a maximum timeout for response messages.

   Note that this definition requires that the response message
   originates from the transport endpoint over which the request message
   has been received.  This is not strictly required by SNMP transport
   mappings and in particular the UDP transport mapping allows to send
   responses from different transport endpoints.  While sending response
   messages from a different transport endpoint is legal, it is also
   considered bad practice causing interoperability problems since
   several management systems do not accept such messages.

   It was decided to require matching transport endpoints since doing so
   significantly simplifies the procedures below and avoids accidentally
   confusing requests and responses.  Implementations responding from
   different transport endpoints will lead to (a) a larger number of
   requests without related responses (and likely no retries) and (b) a
   similarly large number of response messages without a matching
   request.  If such behavior can be detected, the traces should be
   investigated and if needed the transport endpoints corrected.

   Definition (notification group messages): A set of group notification
   messages consists of all messages M satisfying either of the
   following two conditions:



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   (N1)   M is a notification message

   (N2)   M is a response message and there exists a notification
          request message N such that the following holds:

             M.reqid = N.reqid
             M.tdst  = N.tsrc
             M.tsrc  = N.tdst
             (M.time - N.time) < t

   The parameter t defines a maximum timeout for response messages.

   Note that we again require that the transport endpoints match for
   notification group messages.





































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3.  Traces

   Traces are (large) sets of SNMP messages that are the result of
   recording SNMP traffic using a single traffic recording unit (e.g.,
   using tcpdump) on a network segment carrying traffic of one or more
   managers and agents.  Traces being used in the remainder of this
   document may be altered as a result of anonymization, which may
   result in some message information loss.

   Definition (trace): An SNMP trace (or short trace) T is an ordered
   set of zero or more SNMP messages M for which the following holds:

   (T1)   Each messages M in T is either a non-response message or a
          response message.

   (T2)   All messages M in T are chronologically ordered according to
          the capture time stamp M.time.


































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4.  Flows

   Definition (flow): A flow F is the set of messages of an SNMP trace T
   with the following properties:

   (F1)   All response messages originate from a single network
          endpoint.

   (F2)   All non-response messages originate from a single network
          endpoint.

   (F3)   All messages are either command group messages or notification
          group messages.

   Subsequently, we call flows containing only command group messages
   command flows.  Similarly, we call flows containing only notification
   group messages notification flows.

   Note that it is possible that response messages of a trace cannot be
   classified to belong to any flow.  This can happen if request
   messages triggering the response messages were not recorded (for
   example due to asymmetric routing) or because response messages were
   originating from transport endpoints different from the endpoint used
   to receive the associated request message.

   Definition (flow initiator): A flow initiator is the network endpoint
   of the two endpoints involved in a flow, which is responsible for
   sending the first non-response message.

   Notation: Let F be a flow as defined above.  We denote the properties
   of F as follows:

      F.type  = type of the flow F (command/notification)
      F.nsrc  = network layer source endpoint of F
      F.ndst  = network layer destination endpoint of F
      F.start = time stamp of the first message in F
      F.end   = time stamp of the last message in F

   This definition of a flow is mostly consistent with the definition of
   a flow used in [SPHSM07].  The difference is that the tool used to
   generate the data reported in [SPHSM07] did only require that the
   network layer source endpoint of the response messages matches the
   destination network layer endpoint of the associated request
   messages.







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5.  Slices

   Flows are made up of smaller sets of messages that are related to
   each other.  Such a subset of messages from a single flow will be
   considered a slice of a flow.

   Definition (slice): A slice S is a subset of messages in a flow F for
   which the following properties hold:

   (S1)   All messages are exchanged between the same two transport
          endpoints (a single transport endpoint pair).

   (S2)   All non-response messages must be of the same type.

   (S3)   All messages with a PDU of type Get, Set, Trap, or Inform must
          contain the same set of OIDs.

   (S4)   Each GetNext or GetBulk message must either contain the same
          set of OIDs or they must be linked to the chronologically last
          response of the previous request, that is the request must
          contain at least one OID that has been contained in the
          (repeater) varbind list of the chronologically last response
          message of a previous request message.

   (S5)   All Response messages must follow a previous request message
          that is part of the same slice.

   (S6)   For any two subsequent request messages Q1 and Q2 with Q1.time
          < Q2.time, the following condition must hold:

               (Q2.time - Q1.time) < e

   The parameter e defines a maximum time between two request messages
   that belong to a slice.  This parameter should be chosen such that
   unrelated requests within a flow are considered to be of the same
   slice.  This might, for example, be the case where an agent never
   responds to requests from a manager that is set to poll that agent on
   a periodic basis.

   Definition (slice initiator): A slice initiator is one of the two
   transport endpoints involved in a slice, which is responsible for
   sending the chronologically first non-response class message.

   Notation: A slice S has several properties.  We introduce the
   following notation:






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      S.type     = type of non-response messages in S
      S.tsrc     = transport layer endpoint of initiator of S
      S.tdst     = transport layer endpoint of non-initiator of S
      S.start    = time stamp of the chronologically first message in S
      S.end      = time stamp of the chronologically last message in S
      S.prefix   = prefix of S (see below)

   Definition (concurrency): Two slides A and B of a given flow F are
   concurrent at time t if A.start <= t <= A.end and B.start <= t <=
   B.end.  The concurrency level F.clevel(t) of a flow F at time t is
   given by the number of concurrent slices of F at time t.  The
   concurrency level of a manager identified by the network address addr
   at time t is given by the sum of the flow currency levels F.clevel(t)
   for all flows originating from addr, that is F.nsrc = addr.

   Definition (delta time serial): Two slides A and B of a given flow F
   are called delta time serial if (B.start - A.end) < delta.


































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6.  Slice Prefix - (more thoughts needed)

   As noted in the beginning of this document, it is desired that slices
   can be tested for equality/comparability.  This is where the slice
   prefix comes in.  The slice prefix has as a sole purpose to provide
   us one of the means to compare slices.  Using the slice prefix and a
   few other parameters (which will be discussed later on in this
   document) of a number of slices, we can determine which slices should
   be considered 'equal' and which of them are incomparable.  This will
   assist in the process of finding other relations later on.

   The slice prefix will represent a set of referenced OID prefixes.
   Such a set is constructed based on the messages that make up a single
   slice.  So, for example, a slice that is the result of a manager
   requesting the contents of a particular table (alpha) on an agent
   using a simple GetNext walk starting at the table node alpha, shall
   yield a slice prefix which consists of just alpha.

   Because we want to compare different slices using the slice prefix
   (along some other characteristics of a slice), we implicitly want to
   know whether a number of slices are the result of the same behaviour
   from the initiating party of these slices.  For example, we want to
   know whether a slice initiated by a specific manager is the result of
   a specific configuration of that manager which polls one or more
   agents.  As a result multiple slices, that may all be initiated by
   that same manager and possibly in different polling instances, may in
   fact be the result of the same programmed behaviour of that
   particular manager.  Hence, we only consider the messages within
   slices that are sent by the initiating party: the non-response
   messages.  Subsequently, these non-response messages shall be
   analyzed in order to determine the proper resulting set of common OID
   prefixes for that slice.

   The resulting set of OID prefixes will represent the purpose of that
   slice, allowing us to compare different slices for equality/
   comparability.

   Assume the following: Mnon_resp1 and Mnon_resp2 are two consecutive
   non-response messages of a slice (which have unequal request
   identifiers) and that Mresp1 and Mresp2 represent any response
   message to each of the respective non-response messages.

   Definition (slice prefix): A slice prefix P is a set of OID prefixes
   derived from the OIDs contained in the non-response messages of a
   slice.  This set P consists of the following OIDs:






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   (SP1)   Each OID x in Mnon_resp2 of a slice that is not in any
           response Mresp1 to the previous non-response message
           Mnon_resp1 (where Mresp1.time < Mnon_resp2.time for each of
           these response messages in Mnon_resp1) and x is not already
           in P and there exists no OID in P that makes up a part
           (starting from the beginning) of x.

   The following outlines a few lines of pseudo-code in which the
   algorithm for determining the slice prefix of a particular slice is
   summarized.

/*
 * compute the prefix of a given slice
 */

getPrefix(Slice S)
{
    Prefix p = {};          // prefix for this slice, initially empty
    Message prevNonRespMsg; // previous non-response message
    Message R[];

    foreach Message M in S {

      if (M.type == Response || M.type == Report) continue;

      R = getLinkedPreviousResponseMessages(M, prevNonRespMsg);

      foreach OID o in M.oids {
         if (o NOT IN ANY R) {        // XXX clarify this?
             reducePrefix(p, o);
             addPrefix(p, o);
         }
      }

      prevNonRespMsg = M;
   }

   return p;
}

/*
 * Retrieves the linked response message(s) to the previous non-response
 * message (if any)
 */

getLinkedPreviousResponseMessages(Slice S, Message M,
                                  Message prevNonRespMsg)
{



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   Message R[] = {};        // set of previous response messages

   if (prevNonRespMsg) {
       foreach Message M2 in S {
           if (M2.time < M.time
               && M2.time > prevNonResponse.time
               && M2.reqid == prevNonResponse.reqid
               && M2.type == Response) R.add(M2);
       }
   }

   return R;
}

/*
 * reduce prefix p given a new prefix OID o
 */

reducePrefix(Prefix p, OID o)
{
    foreach OID x in p {
       if (|o| < |x| && o[i] == x[i] for i=1,...,|o|) {
           p.remove(x);
       }
    }
}

/*
 * add new prefix OID o if not yet present in the prefix p
 */

addPrefix(Prefix p, OID o)
{
    foreach OID x in p {
        if (|x| < |o| && x[i] == o[i] for i=1,...,|x|) return;
    }
    p.add(o);
}

   Following is an example to illustrate the algorithm just described:
   Consider the case that a single manager A is set to poll a specific
   agent B. More specifically, the manager A is programmed to retrieve
   the complete contents of two single column tables alpha and beta.
   Besides that, the manager also requests the sysUpTime in the first
   request the manager sends to B. The resulting set of messages within
   a single slice of this flow may contain the following messages:





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    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    Message | Direction | PDU type        | OIDs
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
       0        A -> B    GetNext Request   sysUpTime, alpha, beta
       1        B -> A    Response          sysUpTime.0, alpha.0 beta.0
       2        A -> B    GetNext Request   alpha.0, beta.0
       3        B -> A    Response          alpha.1, beta.1
       4        A -> B    GetNext Request   alpha.1, beta.1
       5        B -> A    Response          gamma.0, delta.0
    -------------------------------------------------------------------

   These six messages make up a single slice.  Determining the slice
   prefix for this slice goes as follows:

   At the start the set of found common OID prefixes P is still empty.
   The algorithm starts looking for the first non-response message,
   which is message 0.  It then attempts to find the response messages
   that happened before message 0, that are the result of the previous
   non-response message.  At this stage, no other response can be found,
   because message 0 is the first request of this slice.  Then, the
   algorithm attempts to find larger OIDs in P that can also be found in
   message 0 (like for instance 1.3.6.1 is larger than 1.3.6).  This is
   not the case, so it carries on with testing the OIDs in P for
   equality with any of the OIDs in message 0.  No matching OIDs can be
   found, which in turn results in the algorithm adding the three OIDs
   of message 0 to P.

   The algorithm then goes on with the second message, which is a
   response, so it goes to the third message.  Since this message
   contains only OIDs that can be found in message 1 (a response to the
   previous non-response), the algorithm will not consider the OIDs in
   message 2 any further.  The same goes for the remainder of the non-
   response messages in this slice.

   This example slice would therefore result in a slice prefix
   consisting of the OID prefixes sysUpTime, alpha, beta.

   Following is a more elaborate slice for which the slice prefix is
   determined.  Consider again the case that a single manager A is set
   to poll a specific agent B. Manager A is programmed to retrieve some
   values from B. However, in this case the referenced tables do not
   have an equal length.  Besides that, the manager also requests the
   sysUpTime in every few requests the manager sends to B. The resulting
   set of messages within a single slice of this flow may contain the
   following messages:






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    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    Message | Direction | PDU type        | OIDs
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
       0        A -> B    GetNext Request   alpha.1, beta.1
       1        B -> A    Response          alpha.1.0, beta.1.0
       2        A -> B    GetNext Request   alpha, beta.1.0
       3        B -> A    Response          alpha.0.0, beta.1.1
       4        A -> B    GetNext Request   beta.1.1, alpha.0.0,
                                            sysUpTime
       5        B -> A    Response          beta.1.2, alpha.1.0,
                                            sysUpTime.0
       6        A -> B    GetNext Request   beta.1.2
       7        B -> A    Response          delta.0
    -------------------------------------------------------------------

   These eight messages make up a single slice.  Determining the slice
   prefix for this slice goes as follows:

   At the start the set of found common OID prefixes P is still empty.
   Just as in the previous example, the algorithm analyses the first
   non-response (message 0) first.  Since P is empty at this point and
   earlier response messages cannot be found that occurred before
   message 0, the two OIDs of message 0 will be added to P.

   The second non-response message (message 2) contains one OID
   (beta.1.0) That can also be found in the response to the first
   request; it is therefore not considered any further.  The other OID
   in message 2 is newly introduced.  Also, this OID is a prefix of an
   already listed OID in P: alpha.1.  As a result, alpha.1 will be
   removed from P and OID alpha will be inserted into P. So, after the
   algorithm has completed considering message 2, P will contain the
   common OID prefixes alpha and beta.1.

   Message 4 is the next non-response message.  This message contains
   three OIDs, of which two are exactly the same, even though the order
   is different, compared to the previous response message (message 3).
   A third OID (sysUpTime) in this message cannot be found in message 3,
   neither can it be found in P. Hence, OID sysUpTime is added to P.

   Message 6 is the last non-response message and contains just a single
   OID that can also be found in message 5, the response to the previous
   non-response message.  Therefore, the single OID in message 6 is not
   considered any further.

   After message 6 have all non-response messages been considered in
   this slice.  Even though the order of comparable OIDs within a
   certain non-response and the previous response may be different (like
   in non-response message 4 and response message 3), the listed



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   messages still comprise a single slice.  The slice also shows the
   possibility of a manager (A) referencing OIDs that are new compared
   to a previous response message (like the sysUpTime OID in message 4).

   This example slice would therefore result a slice prefix P consisting
   of the OID prefixes alpha, beta.1 and sysUpTime.













































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7.  Slice Sets - (more thoughts needed)

   Definition (slice type): A slice type is a type mark identifying
   slices that share the following properties:

   (ST1)   All messages have been exchanged between the same transport
           endpoints.

   (ST2)   All read request messages, write request messages, and
           notification messages originate from the same transport
           endpoint.

   (ST3)   All non-response messages are of the same type

   [TODO: Should this be an equivalence relation so that slice sets turn
   into equivalent classes?]

   Definition (slice set): A slice set is a set of slices that have the
   following properties:

   (SS1)   All READ, WRITE, NOTIFY messages originate from the same
           transport endpoint. (really transport???)

   (SS2)   ???

   (SS3)   All messages occurred within a specific time frame of each
           other. (what does this mean??? do we need delta serial for
           messages???)























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8.  Walks - (more thoughts needed)

   Definition (walk): A walk W is a slice S with the following
   properties:

   (W1)   The type of the slice S is either get-next-request or get-
          bulk-request.

   (W2)   At least one object identifier in the sequence of requests at
          the same varbind index must be increasing lexicographically
          while all object identifiers at the same varbind index have to
          be non-decreasing.

   Definition (strict walk): A walk W is a strict walk if all object
   identifiers in the sequence of requests at the same varbind index are
   strictly increasing lexicographically.  Furthermore, the object
   identifiers at the same index of a response and a subsequent request
   must be identical.

   Definition (prefix constrained walk): A walk W is prefix constrained
   if all object identifiers at the same index have the same object
   identifier prefix.  This prefix is established by the first request
   within the walk.




























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9.  Security Considerations

   This document provides definitions for the analysis of SNMP traces
   and does not impact the security of the Internet.















































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10.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no actions for IANA.
















































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11.  Acknowledgements

   This document was influenced by discussions within the Network
   Management Research Group (NMRG).

   Part of this work was funded by the European Commission under grant
   FP6-2004-IST-4-EMANICS-026854-NOE.












































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12.  References

12.1.  Normative References

   [RFC3411]  Harrington, D., Presuhn, R., and B. Wijnen, "An
              Architecture for Describing Simple Network Management
              Protocol (SNMP) Management Frameworks", RFC 3411,
              December 2002.

   [RFC3416]  Presuhn, R., "Version 2 of the Protocol Operations for the
              Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)", RFC 3416,
              December 2002.

12.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3410]  Case, J., Mundy, R., Partain, D., and B. Stewart,
              "Introduction and Applicability Statements for Internet
              Standard Management Framework", RFC 3410, December 2002.

   [ID-IRTF-NMRG-SNMP-MEASURE]
              Schoenwaelder, J., "SNMP Traffic Measurements and Trace
              Exchange Formats", ID draft-irtf-nmrg-snmp-measure-02.txt,
              December 2007.

   [SPHSM07]  Schoenwaelder, J., Pras, A., Harvan, M., Schippers, J.,
              and R. van de Meent, "SNMP Traffic Analysis: Approaches,
              Tools, and First Results", IFIP/IEEE Integrated
              Management IM 2007, May 2007.























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Authors' Addresses

   Gijs van den Broek
   University of Twente
   P.O. BOX 217
   7500 AE Enschede
   Netherlands

   Phone: +31 6 13506591
   Email: j.g.vandenbroek@student.utwente.nl


   Juergen Schoenwaelder
   Jacobs University Bremen
   Campus Ring 1
   28725 Bremen
   Germany

   Phone: +49 421 200-3587
   Email: j.schoenwaelder@jacobs-university.de


   Aiko Pras
   University of Twente
   P.O. BOX 217
   7500 AE Enschede
   Netherlands

   Phone: +31 53 4893778
   Email: a.pras@cs.utwente.nl


   Matus Harvan
   ETH Zurich
   ETH Zentrum
   8092 Zurich
   Switzerland

   Phone: +41 44 632 68 76
   Email: mharvan@inf.ethz.ch











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