RFC 3291 (rfc3291) - Page 2 of 20
Textual Conventions for Internet Network Addresses
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 3291 TCs for Internet Network Addresses May 2002 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. The SNMP Management Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4. Usage Hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.1 Table Indexing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.2 Uniqueness of Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.3 Multiple Addresses per Host . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 4.4 Resolving DNS Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 5. Table Indexing Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 8. Intellectual Property Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 9. Changes from RFC 2851 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 1. Introduction Several standards-track MIB modules use the IpAddress SMIv2 base type. This limits the applicability of these MIB modules to IP Version 4 (IPv4) since the IpAddress SMIv2 base type can only contain 4 byte IPv4 addresses. The IpAddress SMIv2 base type has become problematic with the introduction of IP Version 6 (IPv6) addresses [19]. This document defines multiple textual conventions as a mechanism to express generic Internet network layer addresses within MIB module specifications. The solution is compatible with SMIv2 (STD 58) and SMIv1 (STD 16). New MIB definitions which need to express network layer Internet addresses SHOULD use the textual conventions defined in this memo. New MIB modules SHOULD NOT use the SMIv2 IpAddress base type anymore. A generic Internet address consists of two objects, one whose syntax is InetAddressType, and another whose syntax is InetAddress. The value of the first object determines how the value of the second object is encoded. The InetAddress textual convention represents an opaque Internet address value. The InetAddressType enumeration is used to "cast" the InetAddress value into a concrete textual convention for the address type. This usage of multiple textual conventions allows expression of the display characteristics of each address type and makes the set of defined Internet address types extensible. Daniele, et. al. Standards Track
