RFC 1414

Identification MIB

📅 published February 1993, from ietf

RFC 1414: Identification MIB 🎀

Okay bestie, the title block is giving us the whole backstory first 💅

Request for Comments: 1414
Title: Identification MIB
Working group: Network Working Group
Authors: M. St. Johns (US Department of Defense) and M. Rose (Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.)
Date: February 1993
Category: an IAB standards track protocol (see the Status section below 📜)
Obsoletes: nothing is listed in the title block 🙈
Updates: nothing is listed in the title block 🙈

Status of this Memo 📜

Okay so this one is an IAB standards track protocol for the whole Internet community 🌍, and they're literally begging for discussion and suggestions for improvements 🙏. For the standardization state and status, check the current edition of the "IAB Official Protocol Standards" 📚. Also, distribution of this memo is unlimited, so share it with everyone 💖.

Abstract 🦋

So the big idea here: this memo defines a MIB (a management information base, basically a structured database of managed stuff) for figuring out which users are behind TCP connections 🔍. It's approximately the same vibe as the protocol in RFC 1413 [1] ✨. It was cooked by the TCP Client Identity Protocol Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 🫶.

Table of Contents 🗺

   1. The Network Management Framework .......................    2
   2. Identification MIB .....................................    3
   3. Definitions ............................................    3
   3.1 Conformance Groups ....................................    3
   3.2 Textual Conventions ...................................    3
   3.3 The Ident information Group ...........................    3
   4. Security Considerations ................................    6
   5. References .............................................    6
   6. Authors' Addresses .....................................    7

1. The Network Management Framework 🧚

Okay so the Internet-standard Network Management Framework is built from three components, and each one has its own main-character role 👑:

STD 16/RFC 1155 [2] defines the SMI, which is the mechanisms used for describing and naming objects for the purpose of management.
STD 16/RFC 1212 [3] defines a more concise description mechanism, and it's wholly consistent with the SMI 💜.
STD 17/RFC 1213 [4] defines MIB-II, the core set of managed objects for the Internet suite of protocols 🌈.
STD 15/RFC 1157 [5] defines the SNMP, the protocol used for network access to managed objects 🔥.

The Framework lets new objects be defined for experimentation and evaluation, so it's giving room to play 🧪✨.

Managed objects are accessed through a virtual information store, called the Management Information Base or MIB 🗂. Inside a given MIB module, objects are defined using the OBJECT-TYPE macro from RFC 1212 🎀. At a minimum, every object has a name, a syntax, an access-level, and an implementation-status. Those four things are the bare minimum, no cap 💅.

The name is an object identifier, an administratively assigned name, that specifies an object type. The object type plus an object instance is what uniquely identifies one specific instantiation of the object 🦋. For human convenience, we often use a textual string, called the object descriptor, to also refer to the object type 🫶.

The syntax of an object type defines the abstract data structure that matches that object type. It uses the ASN.1 [6] language for this 🧠. RFC 1155 purposely restricts the ASN.1 constructs that may be used, and those restrictions are explicitly there for simplicity 🍓.

The access-level of an object type defines whether it makes "protocol sense" to read and/or write the value of an instance of that object type. (And btw, this access-level is independent of any administrative authorization policy 🙃.)

The implementation-status of an object type tells you whether the object is mandatory, optional, obsolete, or deprecated 🏷.

2. Identification MIB 🌸

The Identification MIB defines a uniform set of objects that are useful for identifying users associated with TCP connections, and it's honestly so useful 💖. End-systems that support TCP may, at their option, implement this MIB 🖥. However, administrators should read Section 4 ("Security Considerations") before enabling these MIB objects 🙈⚠.

3. Definitions 💅

Here's the actual MIB module, bestie. Every line is copied exactly so the module stays the same 📋.

          RFC1414-MIB DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN

          IMPORTS
              OBJECT-TYPE
                  FROM RFC-1212
              tcpConnLocalAddress, tcpConnLocalPort,
              tcpConnRemAddress, tcpConnRemPort
                      FROM RFC1213-MIB;


          ident   OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { mib-2 24 }

3.1. Conformance Groups 🦋

This is where the conformance groups branch off, under the ident node 🌿.

          -- conformance groups

          identInfo       OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { ident 1 }

3.2. Textual Conventions ✨

The textual conventions section is empty in this module, so it's just a little placeholder with a "none" 🫧.

          -- textual conventions

          -- none

🧁 Part 1 of 2 wraps here. Part 2 picks up with Section 3.3 (The Ident information Group), then Security Considerations, References, and the Authors' Addresses 💜.

7. References ✨

okay bestie, here's the reading list 📚 these are the docs the whole spec leans on, and every single one is listed with all its details.

[1] St. Johns, M., "Identification Protocol", RFC 1413, US Department of Defense, February 1993.

[2] Rose M., and K. McCloghrie, "Structure and Identification of Management Information for TCP/IP-based internets", STD 16, RFC 1155, Performance Systems International, Hughes LAN Systems, May 1990.

[3] Rose, M., and K. McCloghrie, Editors, "Concise MIB Definitions", STD 16, RFC 1212, Performance Systems International, Hughes LAN Systems, March 1991.

[4] McCloghrie K., and M. Rose, Editors, "Management Information Base for Network Management of TCP/IP-based internets", STD 17, RFC 1213, Performance Systems International, March 1991.

[5] Case, J., Fedor, M., Schoffstall, M., and J. Davin, "Simple Network Management Protocol", STD 15, RFC 1157, SNMP Research, Performance Systems International, Performance Systems International, MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, May 1990.

[6] Information processing systems - Open Systems Interconnection - Specification of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1), International Organization for Standardization, International Standard 8824, December 1987.

[7] Zimmerman, D., "The Finger User Information Protocol", RFC 1288, Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, December 1991.

[8] Reynolds, J., and J. Postel, "Assigned Numbers", STD 2, RFC 1340, USC/Information Sciences Institute, July 1992.

8. Authors' Addresses 💌

and this is where you find the people who made it happen 🫶 their contact details are right here, exactly as they were written.

Michael C. St. Johns
U.S. Department of Defense
DARPA/CSTO
3701 N. Fairfax Dr
Arlington, VA 22203

Phone: (703) 696-2271
EMail: stjohns@DARPA.MIL


Marshall T. Rose
Dover Beach Consulting, Inc.
420 Whisman Court
Mountain View, CA 94043-2186

Phone: (415) 968-1052
EMail: mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us

📦 where this page comes from

ietf: rfc1414 1993-02
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