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