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        Unclear on the concept of public and private community strings

Okay, what prompted me to update the blog [1] was an incident that happened
at The Corporation.

Like I mentioned, we're working on “Project: Wolowizard [2],” which involves
dealing with SS7 (Signaling System #7) [3], a telephony-based communications
protocol. To handle SS7 (Signaling System #7), The Corporation licensed The
Protocol Stack From Hell™. Now, given the amount of money that exchanged
hands, one would think we would get decent documentation, source code and
even technical support, but no, no source code, documentation that is
technically correct but completely useless [4] and what can only be described
as “obstinate technical support.”

So for the past two weeks Smirk has been tasked with setting up The Protocol
Stack From Hell™ to respond to SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)
queries. The technically correct but completely useless documentation
indicated that it was a simple matter to set up SNMP support; just configure
the IP (Internet Protocol) address, UDP (User Datagram Protocol) port and
community string (really a password) in a few files and it should “just
work.”

I wouldn't be mentioning it here if it “just worked.” Not only did The
Protocol Stack From Hell™ fail to reply to SNMP queries, but it wasn't even
opening up the UDP port. For two weeks, Smirk, R (the office manager in the
Ft. Lauderdale Office of The Corporation) and a few others from the Main
Office of The Corporation (which is in Seattle, Washington [5]—nice because
they're three hours behind us) were going back and forth with the obstinate
technical support. Things were going nowhere slowly.

Then R suggested that Smirk set the SNMP community string to “public”, which
is a typical default setting for SNMP. Of course that worked. As an off-
handed remark, I suggested that Smirk should try “private”—the other, “more
secure” community string that is commonly used.

That worked too.

But not the community string we wanted to use.

Head. Meet desk.

(For the record, The Protocol Stack From Hell was selected way before R, who
runs the Ft. Lauderdale Office of The Corporation, even worked for The
Corporation)

I mean, yes, there certainly was some braindeath in the “Project: SocialSpace
2.0 [6]” but at least it worked even if you could measure its speed in bits
per eon. This wonderous feature of The Protocol Stack From Hell™ is almost
criminal in its action.

Sheesh.

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2010/10/11.1
[2] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2010/10/11.1
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS7
[4] http://funnyjoke.wordpress.com/2006/12/16/technically-correct-but-a-completely-useless-answer/
[5] http://www.seattle.gov/
[6] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2010/05/29.1

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