Network Working Group                                            J. Case
Request for Comments: 2262                           SNMP Research, Inc.
Category: Standards Track                                  D. Harrington
                                                 Cabletron Systems, Inc.
                                                              R. Presuhn
                                                      BMC Software, Inc.
                                                               B. Wijnen
                                               IBM T. J. Watson Research
                                                            January 1998


               Message Processing and Dispatching for the
               Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1997).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document describes the Message Processing and Dispatching for
   SNMP messages within the SNMP architecture [RFC2261].  It defines the
   procedures for dispatching potentially multiple versions of SNMP
   messages to the proper SNMP Message Processing Models, and for
   dispatching PDUs to SNMP applications.  This document also describes
   one Message Processing Model - the SNMPv3 Message Processing Model.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ...............................................    2
   2. Overview ...................................................    3
   2.1. The Dispatcher. ..........................................    5
   2.2. Message Processing Subsystem .............................    5
   3. Elements of Message Processing and Dispatching .............    6
   3.1. messageProcessingModel ...................................    6
   3.2. pduVersion ...............................................    6
   3.3. pduType ..................................................    7
   3.4. sendPduHandle ............................................    7
   4. Dispatcher Elements of Procedure ...........................    7
   4.1. Sending an SNMP Message to the Network ...................    7



Case, et. al.               Standards Track                     [Page 1]

RFC 2262               SNMPv3 Management Protocol           January 1998


   4.1.1. Sending a Request or Notification ......................    7
   4.1.2. Sending a Response to the Network ......................    9
   4.2. Receiving an SNMP Message from the Network ...............   10
   4.2.1. Message Dispatching of received SNMP Messages ..........   10
   4.2.2. PDU Dispatching for Incoming Messages ..................   11
   4.2.2.1. Incoming Requests and Notifications ..................   12
   4.2.2.2. Incoming Responses ...................................   13
   4.3. Application Registration for Handling PDU types ..........   14
   4.4. Application Unregistration for Handling PDU Types ........   14
   5. Definitions ................................................   15
   5.1. Definitions for SNMP Message Processing and Dispatching ..   15
   6. The SNMPv3 Message Format ..................................   18
   6.1. msgVersion ...............................................   19
   6.2. msgID ....................................................   19
   6.3. msgMaxSize ...............................................   19
   6.4. msgFlags .................................................   20