NAME

       snmp_config - handling of Net-SNMP configuration files

DESCRIPTION

       The Net-SNMP package uses various configuration files to configure its applications.  This
       manual page merely describes the overall nature of them, so that the  other  manual  pages
       don't have to.

DIRECTORIES SEARCHED

       First  off, there are numerous places that configuration files can be found and read from.
       By default, the applications look for configuration files in the following 4  directories,
       in  order:  /etc/snmp, /usr/share/snmp, /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/snmp, and $HOME/.snmp.  In
       each of these directories, it looks  for  files  with  the  extension  of  both  conf  and
       local.conf  (reading  the second ones last).  In this manner, there are 8 default places a
       configuration file can exist for any given configuration file type.

       Additionally, the above default search path can be overridden by setting  the  environment
       variable  SNMPCONFPATH  to  a colon-separated list of directories to search for.  The path
       for the persistent data should be included when running applications that  use  persistent
       storage, such as snmpd.

       Applications   will  read  persistent  configuration  files  in  the  following  order  of
       preference:

              file in SNMP_PERSISTENT_FILE environment variable
              directories in SNMPCONFPATH environment variable
              directory defined by persistentDir snmp.conf variable
              directory in SNMP_PERSISTENT_DIR environment variable
              default /var/lib/snmp directory

       Finally, applications will write persistent configuration files in the following order  of
       preference:

              file in SNMP_PERSISTENT_FILE environment variable
              directory defined by persistentDir snmp.conf variable
              directory in SNMP_PERSISTENT_DIR environment variable
              default /var/lib/snmp directory

       Note:   When  using  SNMP_PERSISTENT_FILE, the filename should match the application name.
       For example, /var/net-snmp/snmpd.conf.

CONFIGURATION FILE TYPES

       Each application may use  multiple  configuration  files,  which  will  configure  various
       different  aspects  of the application.  For instance, the SNMP agent (snmpd) knows how to
       understand configuration directives in both the snmpd.conf and the  snmp.conf  files.   In
       fact, most applications understand how to read the contents of the snmp.conf files.  Note,
       however, that configuration directives understood in one file may  not  be  understood  in
       another  file.   For  further  information,  read  the  associated  manual  page with each
       configuration file type.  Also, most of the  applications  support  a  -H  switch  on  the
       command line that will list the configuration files it will look for and the directives in
       each one that it understands.

       The snmp.conf configuration file is intended to be a application suite wide  configuration
       file  that  supports  directives that are useful for controlling the fundamental nature of
       all of the SNMP applications, such as how they all manipulate and parse the  textual  SNMP
       MIB files.

SWITCHING CONFIGURATION TYPES IN MID-FILE

       It's  possible to switch in mid-file the configuration type that the parser is supposed to
       be reading.  Since that sentence doesn't make much sense, lets give you  an  example:  say
       that  you wanted to turn on packet dumping output for the agent by default, but you didn't
       want to do that for the rest of the applications (ie, snmpget, snmpwalk,  ...).   Normally
       to enable packet dumping in the configuration file you'd need to put a line like:

              dumpPacket true

       into  the  snmp.conf  file.   But, this would turn it on for all of the applications.  So,
       instead, you can put the same line in the snmpd.conf file so that it only applies  to  the
       snmpd  daemon.   However, you need to tell the parser to expect this line.  You do this by
       putting a special type specification token inside a [] set.  In other words,  inside  your
       snmpd.conf file you could put the above snmp.conf directive by adding a line like so:

              [snmp] dumpPacket true

       This  tells  the  parser  to  parse  the  above line as if it were inside a snmp.conf file
       instead of an snmpd.conf file.  If you want to parse a bunch of lines rather than just one
       then  you can make the context switch apply to the remainder of the file or until the next
       context switch directive by putting the special token on a line by itself:

              # make this file handle snmp.conf tokens:
              [snmp]
              dumpPacket true
              logTimestamp true
              # return to our original snmpd.conf tokens:
              [snmpd]
              rocommunity mypublic

       The same approach can be used to set configuration  directives  for  a  particular  client
       application  (or  group  of  applications).   For  example,  any  program  that  uses  the
       'snmp_parse_args()' call to handle command-line arguments (including the standard command-
       line  tools  shipped  as  part  of the Net-SNMP distributions) will automatically read the
       config file 'snmpapp.conf'.  To set library-level settings for these applications (but not
       other more-specific tools), use configuration such as the following:

              [snmp] defCommunity myCommunity

       for a single directive, or

              # make this file handle snmp.conf tokens:
              [snmp]
              defCommunity myCommunity
              defVersion   2c
              # return to our original snmpapp.conf tokens:
              [snmpapp]

       for  multiple  settings.   Similarly  for  any  other  application  token  (as  passed  to
       init_snmp()).

COMMENTS

       Any lines beginning with the character '#' in the configuration files  are  treated  as  a
       comment and are not parsed.

INCLUDING OTHER CONFIGURATION FILES

       It  is  possible  to  include  other  configuration  files  for  processing  during normal
       configuration file processing.:

              # include site specific config
              include site.conf

       This will search every directory in the configuration path for files
       named site.conf, and will process those files before returning to the
       processing of the original file. Note that if '.conf' is omitted,
       it will be appended. That is, all configuration files must end
       in '.conf'.

API INTERFACE

       Information about writing C code that makes use of this system in either the  agent's  MIB
       modules or in applications can be found in the netsnmp_config_api(3) manual page.

SEE ALSO

       snmpconf(1), netsnmp_config_api(3), snmp.conf(5), snmpd.conf(5)