The big joke about simple network management protocol used to be security.
Not my problem.
Yeah.
Simple network management protocol has been a wonder for network managers because the graphical user
interface often time based programs that make it function for them.
It's a godsend.
The network management station.
And you need to know these S&P terms.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be covering them with you.
So the network management station is where the network manager is located.
Of course, this is a nice graphical user interface and it is sending S&P commands down to agent software.
And the agent software communicates with a database called the Management Information Base.
I used to make a men and black joke here, but I can no longer do that because Will Smith slapped Chris
Rock.
And now I don't mention Will Smith movies.
Oh, wait, I just did.
All right, well, whatever.
All right.
So, yeah, the agent is communicating with the management information base.
Now, keep in mind, these two things are on the network.
The network node.
And I say node here, not necessarily like device, because I just want you to know that it is flexible
as far as what the agent and Mitb can be installed on.
So I want to be very broad here and just say a network node.
It could be a client, could be a server, could be a router, could be a firewall.
The list just goes on and on.
So one of the problems and why we used to refer to this protocol as security's not my problem is the
classically used versions of one end to see both of these versions, which we were stuck with for decades.
Both of them are clear text based.
That's right.
Yuck.
I mean, impossible.
No way.
Can't deal with that.
They use community strings as passwords and there's no real security.
So that's why the joke has always been security.
Not my problem.
You can configure a read only password called a community string.
Let me write that.
So it's just kind of burned in your brain.
The passwords are called community strings.
And then there's a read write community string, otherwise known as a password.
And that's it really for the security mechanisms of version one and two.
See, that's a nightmare.
And we want to try and get that stuff out of our network, by the way.
Sorry, I'm writing Crooked.
I'll stop doing that.
That's weird.
All right.
So, what else?
Well, SMP version three can no longer be easily joked about as far as security goes.
And that's because we now have version three and version three.
It's like they were insulted for being made fun of for so long.
This thing has robust security.
You can configure it like with no security, some security, more security.
And then you could go crazy security and know those aren't the official terms.
It's just that there's a bunch of different modes.
You don't need to know them all at this point, but just understand that there is like auth no priv
which means there's authentication done but no encryption.
And then you can do strong authentication and strong encryption which would be auth priv.
So there's all these different, you know, interestingly named modes and that gives you varying levels
of security and varying levels of authentication and encryption.
And as I said, it can get crazy secure now.
So as an MP, version three is definitely where we want to be pushing for when it comes to S&P usage.
That's because everything could be securely authenticated and encrypted and would be nearly impossible
to enumerate in any way.
Think about it.
This nib that the agent is next to contains just hundreds of thousands of variables.
These variables give all kinds of information about that node.
That's the whole point of SMP by the.
Way is for all these probes.
And by the way, we should know this term traps.
Traps are sent by the agent.
They're non requested, so they just happen.
And these are great for network administrators.
They might go in and say if the temperature in the data center ever hits 80 degrees.
Right.
If it ever hits 80 degrees Fahrenheit, then absolutely sound off an alarm.
And that would be a simple network management protocol trap.
So these kinds of mechanisms, they're going to contain a lot of information by design about these devices.
This information must be kept secure.
Otherwise great enumeration could be done against S&P and S&P systems.