JNCIA-Junos Study Guide—Part 1

How It Works

Upon entering a commit command or reaching the specified time interval, the system copies the configuration file into the
/var/transfer/config directory and an FTP or SCP session is opened with the remote storage device. Once the
configuration file is transferred to the remote storage device, a system log message is generated, confirming success or failure
of the transfer. The destination filename format, as shown on the graphic, cannot be altered by configuration.

SNMP Operation

Devices running the Junos OS act as SNMP agents. An SNMP agent exchanges network management information with SNMP
manager software running on a network management system (NMS) or host. The agent responds to requests for information
and actions from the manager. An agent communicates with the SNMP manager using the following message types.
• Get, Getbulk, or Getnext requests: The SNMP manager requests information from an SNMP agent. The agent
responds with a Get response message.
• Set requests: The SNMP manager changes the value of a Management Information Base (MIB) object controlled by
the agent. The agent returns the status in a Set response message.
• Notifications: The SNMP agent sends traps to notify the manager of significant events regarding the network
device. SNMP version 3 uses informs to notify the manager of significant events. Informs increase SNMP reliability
by requiring the receiver to acknowledge the receipt of an inform notification.
By polling managed network devices, the NMS collects information about network resources. An SNMP agent can also notify the
NMS of events and resource constraints through the use of SNMP traps.

Management Information Bases

A MIB is a collection of objects maintained by the SNMP agent in a hierarchical fashion. The SNMP manager views or changes
objects within the MIB structure. MIBs can be defined at the enterprise level to provide enterprise-specific information about the
managed network device, or MIBs can be standardized to provide common information across multiple vendor network devices.
NMS devices poll object identifiers (OIDs) to retrieve management information. An OID is considered a leaf in the tree-like

Chapter 4–14 • Secondary System Configuration © 2012 Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.