Community Strings - Avaya VSP 4000 Technical Configuration Manual

8.4 Community Strings

For security reasons, the SNMP agent validates each request from an SNMP manager before responding
to the request. This is accomplished by verifying that the manager belongs to a valid SNMP community.
An SNMP community is a logical relationship between an SNMP agent and one or more SNMP managers
(the manager software implements the protocols used to exchange data with SNMP agents). You define
communities locally at the agent.
The agent establishes one community for each combination of authentication and access control
characteristics that you choose. You assign each community a unique name (community string), and all
members of a community have the same access privileges, The default VACM group tables provide either
read-only or read-write:

Read-only: members can view configuration and performance information.

Read-write: members can view configuration and performance information, and also change the
configuration.
By defining a community, an agent limits access to its MIB to a selected set of management stations. By
using more than one community, the agent can provide different levels of MIB access to different
management stations.
SNMP community strings are required for access to the switch using SNMP-based management
software. You set the SNMP community strings using the CLI. If you have read/write/all access authority,
you can modify the SNMP community strings for access to the device through Enterprise Device
Manager.
When saving the configuration file, a hidden and encrypted file is created that contains the SNMP
community table information. The SNMP community strings are not referenced in the VSP switch
configuration file.
March 2015
Avaya Inc. – External Distribution
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