net-snmp bug fix update

Updated net-snmp packages that resolve several issues are now available.

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a protocol used for
network management. The net-snmp packages include various SNMP tools: an
extensible agent, an SNMP library, tools for requesting or setting
information from SNMP agents, tools for generating and handling SNMP traps,
a version of the netstat command which uses SNMP, and a Tk/Perl MIB browser.

These updated net-snmp packages provide fixes for the following bugs:

* snmpd expects the "type" field of snmp_set_var_value() to be filled
before the function is called. However SMUX, as previously implemented,
expected these events in the reverse order. As a result, trap forwarding
from SMUX peers would not work. SMUX now expect events to take place in the
same order as snmpd, thereby enabling trap forwarding from SMUX peers.

* snmpd now supports two new options for snmpd.conf files:
"dontLogTCPWrappersConnects" (this suppresses logging of connection
attempts), and "v1trapaddress" (this allows an agent's IP address to be set
inside outgoing SNMP traps).

* a patch previously applied to the net-snmp packages failed to allow the
snmpd and snmptrapd daemons to process hostnames in transport address
specifiers. Attempts to use a hostname as the listening address for
snmptrap would therefore fail. The previous patch has been replaced by a
new version which allows for hostnames in transport address specifiers.

* the method previously used by snmpd to process UDP did not work well in
clustered environments. Queries against an IP configured as a resource of a
cluster service would time out and fail unless first performed against a
non-cluster resource IP. Net-snmp for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 now
includes improved UDP handling. This allows snmpd queries to work reliably
in a clustered environment.

* -LF, -LS, and -LO are deprecated options for starting the snmp daemon.
After they were deprecated, any attempt to start the daemon with one of
these options would cause a segmentation fault. Snmpd now provides the user
with a warning about incorrect syntax instead.

* end-users may want to turn off the snmp daemon's default logging ('snmpd
-l /dev/null'). Previously, this would generate warnings about '-l' being
deprecated. The manual page of the snmpd daemon now describes default
logging behaviour and how to turn it off. In addition, snmpd started with
'-l' command line option no longer outputs a deprecation warning.

* the snmpd daemon reported IP address values with an incorrect length of 8
bytes on 64-bit architectures. This has been corrected by asserting within
the snmp_client that an IP address has a length of 4 bytes.

* the net-snmp-perl and net-snmp-devel subpackages only required matching
versions of net-snmp and net-snmp-lib, not matching releases. This meant
that an update of either subpackage would not result in updates to the
current releases of net-snmp (to get correct MIB files) or net-snmp-libs
(to get correct libraries). These subpackages now require the same release
for net-snmp-perl and net-snmp-devel, ensuring that the MIB files and
libraries are brought up to date.

The snmpd daemon now contains fixes for following OIDs:

* UCD-SNMP-MIB::ssCpu* statistics were calculated on the basis of averages
since the agent started. Similarly, HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrProcessorLoad was
calculated as an average of load since the last query. Neither of these
presented a current or useful report of system status. These values are now
calculated on the basis of activity over the last 60 seconds, and are
updated every 5 seconds.
Note: it takes 60 seconds from the daemon's initial startup to calculate
the OID values.

* UCD-SNMP-MIB::dskPercent was based on statfs, which would fail when used
on devices larger than 32 terabytes. Net-snmp is now built with support for
64-bit file offsets, and can therefore use statfs64 to calculate disk usage
correctly for large devices.

All users of net-snmp are advised to upgrade to these updated packages,
which resolve these issues.

Before applying this update, make sure that all previously-released
errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via Red Hat Network. Details on how to use
the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-11259

447839 - snmptrapd command line does not accept hostname in transport-address
447947 - SNMPd does not respond on cluster service IP
458996 - HOST-RESOURCES-MIB::hrProcessorLoad returns run queue not processor load
461503 - hrProcessorLoad is not 64bit safe
462016 - Net SNMP doesn't smux dell open manage
464764 - [RHEL4] IP address length is 8 bytes on 64bits
469679 - snmp-perl and net-snmp-devel does not require the right packages.
474161 - net-snmp does not use statfs64 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4

agentx, net-snmp, snmpd