Muonics Blog

As previously (but quietly) announced, User-Based Licensing was introduced in MIB Smithy SDK 4.0, and subsequently in MIB Smithy 4.2 and MIB Views 1.5. Earlier versions of these products supported only Host-Based Licensing.

Host-Based Licensing permits any user to use the software on a single specified computer, provided it’s used by only one person at a time. This scheme is useful in multi-user environments where use is less frequent, as licenses can be shared in this manner, with the trade-off being limits on how often the license can be transferred to another computer.

User-Based Licensing, on the other hand, permits a single specified user to use the software on any computer, provided it’s used on only one computer at a time. This scheme is useful in environments where a user uses multiple computers or changes computers frequently (such as on a desktop and laptop), with the trade-off being that each user needs their own license.

The User-Based Licensing feature was implemented in these releases, but until now the systems on the web site weren’t set up to handle it. From now on, when initially configuring their license key, new customers can choose whether to designate it as a User-Based or Host-Based License, and whether to use the old license key format (compatible with all versions) or new license key format (compatible with these versions and later) for Host-Based Licenses. The new format includes a couple of freely editable plaintext fields (usually filled in with the product name and serial number) that make it easier for customers with multiple license keys to distinguish them from one another, and gets rid of those BEGIN/END lines people often don’t realize are required parts of the old key format.

Customers who initially purchased their license prior to December 31, 2010 (through end of this year) who are using Host-Based Licenses can elect to permanently convert their keys to User-Based Licenses, provided their support is current, and can now do so online by following link at the bottom of the License Detail page, accessible via serial number link at Manage Licenses. This future cutoff date was chosen to allow for transition time, as some current MIB Smithy SDK users may want to switch to User-Based Licenses, and may wish to acquire additional licenses, but need time to port their scripts or hardware from SDK 3.x to 4.x API and Platform Changes.

After conversion to a User-Based License, you’ll be permitted to continue to use your old Host-Based license key as necessary for migration and script porting, but it may no longer be shared (it must be used only by the newly assigned user) and no further Host ID transfers will be permitted.

The new format looks approximately like this, with the two fields in ||’s editable in any way that helps you keep track of your licenses (except by inserting | characters):

|MIB Smithy Professional - Windows|XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX|dcPkYQW
hJeSOYzDPDYvWprYQoaQd9zsoDihw25qLweMriJBDksDQbRuwbHfdprYfIKQdQQ
YjY42AzazjkeNn30s8ygPiOOChK2UveIM4BWNmF2Vg=lyma9fS60Ah9k0JZ02ja

If you’d like to convert your license to the new format, but stay with Host-Based Licensing, please contact support. As with conversion to User-Based, your support must be current (it’s only supported by the above versions of the software).

P.S. No, that’s not a valid license key, so don’t even try. :)

MIB Smithy 4.2 and MIB Views 1.5 are now available. These releases are based on MIB Smithy SDK 4.0, adding IPv6 support, Linux x86_64 support, a username-based licensing option, and many MIB compiler improvements (a full list can be found in the MIB Smithy SDK 4.0 Release Announcement, which also describes changes to supported platforms that apply to these releases as well).

The format used specify OCTET STRING values in hex in the SNMP Query Tool and Agent Settings dialog has changed, in keeping with SDK 4.0’s changes to binary data handling. Instead of prefixing the value with 0x, as in 0x:12:ab:cd, you surround the value in single quotes, as in '12:ab:cd'. However, you can now suppress conversion from hex, treating the value as a literal string (with quotes) by surrounding the value in another pair of single quotes, as in ''12:ab:cd''. Essentially, any string value with surrounding single quotes will have one set of quotes stripped off; if, after stripping, the value looks like colon-delimited hex (without quotes), hex conversion will occur.

Although these releases don’t do much beyond what SDK 4.0 brings, it’s still a significant milestone. Now that MIB Smithy and MIB Views are up to the new SDK version, the holds on new features are lifted, so I can get back to tackling my sizable wish list for these products. First, though, I’ll be working on getting the web site updated to support generating the new username-based license keys and providing access to the Linux x86_64 platform (x86_64 won’t be treated as a unique platform from x86 as far as purchasing and license keys are concerned, but it is a different build/distribution, and the systems aren’t set up yet to handle two different files for a single platform+version).

We’re now in the final stretches of automating regression tests for our MIB parsing and validation code in preparation for releasing the 4.0 branch of the SDK, with better than 3/4 of the test automation done. After the latest round of several hundred tests and analyzing the current results, we identified some more areas for improvement in the validation code we felt were appropriate to release in the current stable branch. These include eliminating redundant messages, clarifying other messages, correcting some false errors, some error level adjustments, and some additional rules. The changes below are incorporated into the latest releases for MIB Smithy, MIB Smithy SDK, and MIB Views.

1735: INDEX and AUGMENTS forbidden with RFC1155-SMI, RFC1065-SMI

It is now an error, rather than a warning, for an OBJECT-TYPE to have an INDEX or AUGMENTS clause when imported from RFC1065-SMI or RFC1155-SMI.

1760: TEXTUAL-CONVENTIONs must not derive from other TEXTUAL-CONVENTIONs

It is now an error, rather than a warning, for SMIv2 modules to define TEXTUAL-CONVENTIONs derived from other TEXTUAL-CONVENTIONs. This is also now an error for COPS-PR-SPPI modules, which previously gave no warning.

1747: Additional validation for variant access levels

PIB-MIN-ACCESS is now checked to ensure its values are allowed by COPS-PR-SPPI. MODULE-COMPLIANCE’s PIB-MIN-ACCESS and MIN-ACCESS, and AGENT-CAPABILITIES ACCESS, are now checked to ensure their values are within bounds of the referenced object’s (or PRC’s) MAX-ACCESS or ACCESS value.

1761: Improved version-specific validation with missing IMPORTS

Previously, when a macro (such as OBJECT-TYPE) was not imported as required, certain version-specific validation checks (such as allowed STATUS values) were suppressed, giving only an error about the missing import. Now, the version may be assumed based on other imports that are present, allowing further checks to be performed.

1733: Suppress bit zero warning when no bits are defined

A redundant warning regarding starting BITS at zero when also erroring about needing at least one bit to be defined.

1738: Clarify access keywords in error messages

Validator messages should use the proper access keyword (ACCESS, MAX-ACCESS, PIB-ACCESS, MIN-ACCESS, PIB-MIN-ACCESS) depending on the record type and version (SMIv1, SMIv2, COPS-PR-SPPI) of the record. In some cases, they simply said “ACCESS”.

1701: False errors and changes to BITS DEFVAL validation

The algorithm for checking set bits in hex/binary DEFVALs versus BITS named bit values was not correct, leading to errors for valid DEFVALs. Also, an integer is no longer allowed for DEFVAL with BITS type, and undefined bits may no longer be set in the DEFVAL (previously these were warnings).

1720: Disallow hyphens in COPS-PR-SPPI identifiers

As with SMIv2 modules, which COPS-PR-SPPI derives from, a warning is now produced for identifiers with hyphens in PIB modules.

1717: Wrong range given in INSTALL-ERRORS message

INSTALL-ERRORS was being checked versus the correct allowed range of 1..65535, but the error message indicated 0..65536 was allowed.

1689: False subordinate OID warnings for conformance records

Conformance sub-records were not properly ignored when checking relative structure of the OID tree, causing false errors/warnings to be produced (nothing should be considered relative to these records as they’re purely an implementation detail, not truly separate from the conformance statement).

1682: Value Assignment values missing from error messages

Error messages regarding ASN.1 Value Assignment values not matching the type were giving an empty string for the value rather than the actual value. (Note: only ASN.1 Value Assignments of type OBJECT IDENTIFIER are allowed in MIB and PIB modules; this validation is part of plain ASN.1 support.)

1685: False warning for starting bit zero when using BITS-derived type

A warning message was produced for OBJECT-TYPEs with SYNTAX referencing a TEXTUAL-CONVENTION of type BITS indicating that bits should start at zero even when the TEXTUAL-CONVENTION itself started at bit zero.

1684: Missing error for invalid PIB-REFERENCES

An incorrect function argument was suppressing the error message for PIB-REFERENCES pointing somewhere other than a PRC (row) OBJECT-TYPE.

1759: REVISIONs not sorted properly by XML parser

MODULE-COMPLIANCE REVISIONs are normally sorted when assigned or parsed from normal SMI syntax (with parse-time warning in the latter case), and therefore not checked during validation. They were not sorted properly by the XML parser, however, leaving them out of order with no indication. They are now sorted at parse time from XML as well.

1716: Severity of Value Assignments in SMIv2/SPPI

It’s now an error, rather than a warning, to use ASN.1 Value Assignments other than of type OBJECT IDENTIFIER in SMIv2 and COPS-PR-SPPI modules. It remains a warning for SMIv1 modules, but is now suppressed entirely for modules that aren’t SMI or SPPI (just ASN.1).

1736: Redundant messages for Counter with bad ACCESS

Use of Counter, Counter32, or Counter64 syntax and ACCESS, MAX-ACCESS, or MIN-ACCESS value unknown to the SMI version now produces one error message for the unknown value, rather than a second for the value being disallowed with counter types.

1729: PIB-INDEX may use attributes of other PRCs

An error message was produced if PIB-INDEX referenced an attribute of another PRC (table) rather than an attribute of the same PRC. As this is explicitly allowed by RFC 3159 section 7.5, this check has been removed.

1731: OID in module header forbidden in SMIv2

It’s now an error, rather than a warning, to assign an OID to a module in the module in SMIv2 or COPS-PR-SPPI modules (which use MODULE-IDENTITY instead). It remains a warning in SMIv1 and is now suppresed for modules that are neither SMI or SPPI (just ASN.1).

1728: OBJECT-IDENTITY and Assignment with same OID should be a warning

It is now a warning, rather than an error, when an OBJECT-IDENTITY statement and OID Value Assignment have the same OID, as it is with an OID Value Assignment and other macros having the same OID.

1727: Missing error for INDEX with negative enumerations

An intended warning for an INDEX pointing to an object with possible negative enumerations was not being produced.

1725: Superfluous auxilliary INDEX warnings

The warning for a table using only columns from other tables for indices is no longer generated when already indicating an error because the INDEX clause is not allowed (e.g. on a scalar OBJECT-TYPE).

1711: Undefined symbols should always error if known to be undefined

Dependency check “failed” errors and “skipped” warnings are now more consistent in behavior: e.g., a check is “skipped” with a warning if cross-checking can’t be performed because a module isn’t loaded, while an error is produced if it is loaded but the symbol imported from is not defined.

1710: Mixing SMI and COPS-PR-SPPI base types/macros

It’s now an error, rather than a warning, to import both SMI and COPS-PR-SPPI base types and macros within the same module (note: importing MIB OIDs and TEXTUAL-CONVENTIONs in PIB modules is allowed, provided the underlying base type is the supported by the SPPI).

1690: Wrong format indicated in DEFVAL type/value mismatch errors

When comparing the form of DEFVAL values to an object’s SYNTAX, the wrong keyword for the form of the value was specified in some errors pertaining to hex and binary. The wording of DEFVAL type/value related messages is also now more consistent.

1686: Redundant hex/binary length errors

When validating hex and binary DEFVALs, redundant errors were produced for some types when they were both not of the required length for that type and not the right multiple of digits. There was some inconsistency in whether or not they were checked for capitalization, and the wording of hex/binary related messages was also clarified.

1683: UNIQUENESS value missing from message

A warning message regarding UNIQUENESS values was showing an empty string for the value rather than indicating the actual value warned about.

1708: SMI base modules should not require MODULE-IDENTITY

On the off chance you load SNMPv2-CONF into the SDK and validate it, despite not defining anything other than macros, it will no longer error about needing a MODULE-IDENTITY statement (as with other SMI/COPS base modules).

MIB Smithy 4.1.2, MIB Smithy SDK 3.4.6, and MIB Views 1.4.2 are now available for download, with essentially the same bug fixes in each. These will most likely be the last releases based on the SDK 3.4 development branch, as we’re finally getting close to having the SDK 4.0 development branch in a releasable state. Since it’s taken an unusually long time to release 4.0 branch and there are some potential compatibility issues you’ll need to be aware of, as well as new features affecting all three of these products, I’ll talk a bit more about it in a post to follow shortly.

Changes affecting MIB Smithy, MIB Smithy SDK, and MIB Views:

305: Host ID not matched when interface is disconnected

Windows interfaces that were disconnected were not recognized by the license manager, requiring laptop users to have to swap license keys depending on whether they were on wired or wireless. This is is no longer necessary, as the interfaces are seen whether connected or not.

727: Clarify “trailing hyphens will be stripped” error

The parser message produced for identifiers with illegal trailing hyphens was stripping the hyphen in the error message (indicating the corrected identifier was invalid) yet not automatically correcting the error as it should.

1368: Windows: IPv6-only interface Host IDs not available

Windows interfaces configured to support only IPv6 could not previously be used for licenses keys, but can now.

1406: Circular type references cause crash

A type definition derived from another type definition, which is derived from the first type definition, would lead to a crash due to infinite recursion. (Note: TEXTUAL- CONVENTIONs cannot legally derive from other TEXTUAL-CONVENTIONs.)

Additional changes affecting MIB Smithy SDK:

312: Changing IPs with SNMPv3 loses auth/priv state

Changing the target IP address of an existing SNMPv3 auth/priv session without also setting the auth/priv password did not sufficiently prepare the session to localize keys with the next request, causing the session to switch to no-auth/no-priv.

1354: Timeout of Tnm-style async requests causes error with future request

Upon timeout of a Tnm-style async request, the callback was being invoked using non- Tnm style arguments, which would typically cause an error, when it should not be invoked at all.

MIB Views version 1.4.1 is now available with the following changes:

483: Updated Tcl/Tk version

The Tcl/Tk base for MIB Views was upgraded to 8.4.19. Among other things, this fixes a crash at startup on later versions of Mac OS X.

605: Application icons for Unix

Full-color application icons have been added to Unix platforms, replacing the old monochrome bitmaps.

1271: TreeView: lexicographic errors can cause loop

In certain circumstances, an agent returning lexicographically incorrect responses to get-next requests could cause branch expansion to loop until a user requested stop, and duplicate branches could be displayed. More protections against lexicographic errors were added to prevent this.