Overview

A Management Information Base (MIB) of a system, as specified in a standard, is a structured list of the system's abstract resources and the attributes, operations, notifications, and behavior associated with these resources. Management of the system is assumed to be achieved through interaction of the manager with the objects in the MIB.

The actual managed resources of an implementation corresponding to these MIB objects may be very diverse. Registers in a chip, memory contents, the "state" of a process, physical presence or absence of a connected system, and many other things may all be represented towards the Manager as MIB objects. Hence, the MIB is merely a "view" of a collection of manageable resources. The translation of the implementation-specific characteristics of the system's components into standardized MIB object behavior is performed by an entity called the "Management Agent"; it interacts with the Manager through a management protocol, and with the managed resources through any appropriate means.

Although IEEE Std. 802.3-2002 does not specify a management protocol, it does specify the managed objects that must be visible to a Manager, when present, in great detail (Clause 30 of IEEE Std. 802.3). These managed objects, along with their behavior, attributes, actions, and notifications, are grouped into optional and mandatory "packages," which are in turn grouped into "capabilities." A system that claims compliance with IEEE Std. 802.3...