Bug#823201: snmpd: Configuration errors on a fresh install

[Kay Hayen]

Package: snmpd

Version: 5.7.3+dfsg-1.3

Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

I just installed "snmpd" from testing, and did systemctl status snmpd.service

which gives lines like this:

/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf: line 145: Warning: Unknown token: defaultMonitors.

/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf: line 147: Warning: Unknown token: linkUpDownNotifications.

The daemon appears to be running just fine, but I assume there

must be some migration issues, probably these settings have

been removed/renamed upstream.

Of course, the default configuration should not have such errors.

-- System Information:

Debian Release: stretch/sid

  APT prefers testing

  APT policy: (900, 'testing')

Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.5.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)

Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages snmpd depends on:

ii  adduser                3.114

ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.59

ii  libc6                  2.22-7

ii  libsnmp-base           5.7.3+dfsg-1.3

ii  libsnmp30              5.7.3+dfsg-1.3

ii  lsb-base               9.20160110

snmpd recommends no packages.

Versions of packages snmpd suggests:

pn  snmptrapd  <none>

-- Configuration Files:

/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf [Errno 13] Keine Berechtigung: u'/etc/snmp/snmpd.conf'

-- debconf information:

  snmpd/upgradefrom521:

[Craig Small]

OK, so I have now looked into this bug and what these messages mean.

TLDR: comment out those lines and that's what the next release of snmpd will have.

Those tokens are for the DISMAN event handling. In effect, they are like a macro that turns on a lot of event messages for a system such as low disk free.

The systemd unit file and the init script exclude both the mteTrigger and mteTriggerConf modules. These modules (one or other or both) contain the tokens that you see in the log. Turn off the modules snmpd doesn't know what those lines mean.

So why not remove the configuration to disable those modules?  The modules require the DISMAN SNMP MIB.  In effect a file that converts the textual version of an SNMP variable into a number.  MIBs in the old days have the same license as the RFC which is non-free[1].

For newer ones, they are licensed under the BSD license but not the old ones, unfortunately.

The options are:

 1) Comment out those lines in the configuration file; or

 2) Download the DISMAN MIBs, Debian cannot have them in main due to license problems

 - Craig

1: https://wiki.debian.org/NonFreeIETFDocuments