Editor's Note: Minutes received 12/20

Editor's Note: Minutes received 12/20

CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Steve Waldbusser/CMU

Minutes of the Host Resources MIB Working Group (HOSTMIB)

Agenda

o Administration
o Identify New Issues
o Resolve Issues

- Queues
- Networked printers
- In hrPrinterPrintPages, what is a page?

o Plan/Conclusion

New Issues

o swRunCPU
o Parent ID
o User ID
o Terminal ID
o International character set
o Remote file systems (size, use, etc.)
o Chassis MIB (as it relates to HostMIB)
o Processor speed
o Remote FS

Discussion and Resolution of Issues

1. Queues (Three Choices Proposed):

o Don't do queues.
o Overload hrStorage to include queues.
o Add a new table.

The question was posed as to whether the host resources MIB was the
appropriate place for queue management? One point in favor was
that queues are a good metric of system performance. Against,
queues are very specific to their use. In other words, a print
queue is different from a mail queue. We can't do a decent job of
representing queue specifics here in the host MIB. In conclusion
the Group unanimously agreed that we should not manage queues in
the host MIB.

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2. Network Printers
Currently printer support is for local printers. Remote FS is
good. Remote printer could be useful but is very different.
PRO: Connecting to remote FS is the same (from a users perspective)
as connecting to a remote printer, especially on a PC.
CON: Remote FS is knowledge that is integral to the host OS.
Printing is stateless and unknown by the host OS. Can we do a
reasonable job of monitoring a network printer. Is this a PC
specific problem? Should networked printers be handled in a
printer MIB?
Conclusion: Do not support networked printers as a part of this
MIB effort. This discussion uncovered that we should add wording
to MIB to indicate that we show all FS's that are system wide
resources (as opposed to FS's which are specific to a user).

3. What is a Page?
Proposal Number One is to drop hrPrinterPagesPrinted, and count
octets instead. An observation was made that 80% to 90% of the
printers can not count octets.
Proposal Number Two is to drop pagecount and add ``printer needs
service'' bit in printer status. This bit is an OR of the other
need service bits AND any other service the printer knows it needs.
Conclusion: The Group agreed to support proposal Number Two and
add the definition of BIT STRINGs from the snmpV2 effort to this
MIB, encoded as an OCTET STRING.

4. swRunPerfCPU
Conclusion: A proposal was made to change this to count
centi-seconds run rather than percentage. The advantage to this
scheme is that agent can look to process table (in typical OS
environment) rather than have to maintain count at each interval
(or task switch).
In multiprocessor environments, this count is the sum of this
process across all processors. (Parent Process ID, user ID,
terminal ID)
Conclusion: These are very OS specific and not appropriate in this
MIB effort.

5. International Character Sets
Discussion: Should we tackle this complex problem in this MIB
effort? Is NLS support an SNMP problem and outside of our scope?
Proposal: Create a textual convention (TC) called ``characters''
which is an octet string. NMS should parse this to decide if it is
printable ascii.
Conclusion: Modify the MIB to add the characters TC.

6. Size of Remote FS

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Conclusion: This is OS specific, so the Group agreed to withdraw
this.

7. Chassis MIB relationship to host MIB
Discussion: The chassisMIB is facing some interesting similarities
to the hostMIB.
Conclusion: Interested individuals can work with the chassisMIB
Working Group. However, we won't do this as a function of the
HOSTMIB Working Group.

8. Processor Speed
Conclusion: Delete this as it is covered by ProductID.

Planning/Conclusion

Where do we go from here?

The Group reached consensus that all appropriate substantive issues had
been addressed and that the MIB should be submitted to the IESG for
publication as an RFC at the Proposed Standard level. In particular,
this consensus was that the appropriate amount of effort had been placed
in identifying issues, and that each of these issues had been resolved.
Any further issues that might be identified after the meeting would be
addressed when the MIB is to go to Draft Standard. Bug fixes and
clarifications during the final editing process would be agreed upon on
the mailing list.

The plan for the document is that Grillo and Waldbusser will make
changes based on the results of the meeting and make that document
available via FTP and a notification on the mailing list. A week or two
of discussion would occur on issues of bug fixes and clarifications.
This would result in editing instructions that would be applied to the
MIB and the MIB would then be submitted to the internet-drafts directory
and to the IESG.

Attendees

Bill Bowman [email protected]
Stephen Bush [email protected]
Chris Chiotasso [email protected]
James Davin [email protected]
Michael Davison [email protected]
Manuel Diaz [email protected]
Jon Dreyer [email protected]
Raymond Edgerton [email protected]
Daniel Fauvarque [email protected]
Pete Grillo [email protected]
Gerd Holzhauer [email protected]
Kevin Jackson [email protected]
Ronald Jacoby [email protected]

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Mark Kepke [email protected]
Zbigniew Kielczewski [email protected]
Dwain Kinghorn [email protected]
Andrew Knutsen [email protected]
David Lin [email protected]
William McKenzie [email protected]
Patrick Mullaney [email protected]
David Orelowitz [email protected]
Gaige Paulsen [email protected]
Ed Reeder [email protected]
Bradley Rhoades [email protected]
Dan Romascanu [email protected]
Assaf Rubissa [email protected]
Jon Saperia [email protected]
Michael Sapich [email protected]
Timon Sloane [email protected]
Dean Throop [email protected]
Panos-Gavriil Tsigaridas [email protected]
Steven Waldbusser [email protected]

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