Agent Extensibility Protocol

The Agent Extensibility Protocol or short AgentX is a network protocol for the modular extension of the SNMP agent. There is an Internet standard, which is described in RFC 2741.

Basic function

AgentX is part of the SNMP Management Frameworks and shall forward the task of SNMP requests from a so-called master agent to one or more subagents. Master and subagent are usually on the same machine, which is why the classification of AgentX network protocol has more formal character. AgentX does not provide access control, as this is done by the master agent, and therefore should not be used over the network. AgentX is independent of the SNMP version that is supported by the master agent.

Demarcation

In other modularization approaches the SNMP agent is dynamically extended by code in the form of dynamic libraries or depend on its configuration, call external programs for specific data. In contrast, the AgentX master agent only one interface available at the sign in the subagents to register their subtree of the MIB, and possibly also unsubscribe. So there are the subagents, which define how the master agent is extended and not the configuration of the master agent. This is all done at runtime without restarting the master agent.

  • Internet application protocol
Simple Network Management Protocol Management Information Base
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