easiersnmp 0.2.0

easiersnmp is a wrapper around easysnmp to make it even easier to use

easiersnmp

easiersnmp is a wrapper around easysnmp to make it even easier to use. It also includes an alternative implementation of easysnmptable.

Python types

While I really like easysnmp, it returns instances of SNMPVariable instead of of the basic Python data types. In addition the actual value (SNMPVariable.value) will always be a string, even if the underlying SNMP type is numeric.

SNMP GET in easysnmp

import easysnmp
session = easysnmp.Session(hostname='localhost', community='public', version=2)
result = session.get('ifIndex.1')

# result is an instance of easysnmp.SNMPVariable
print(result.oid, result.oid_index, result.snmp_type, result.value)
# ifIndex 1 INTEGER 1

# The result.value is a string even though the snmp_type is INTEGER
print(type(result.value)
# str

easiersnmp changes this behaviour by converting SNMPVariable.value into the correct data type.

SNMP GET in easiersnmp

import easiersnmp
session = easiersnmp.Session(hostname='localhost', community='public', version=2)
result = session.get('ifIndex.1')

# result is an instance of easiersnmp.SNMPVariable
print(result.oid, result.oid_index, result.snmp_type, result.value)
# ifIndex 1 INTEGER 1

# The result.value is an integer matching the snmp_type
print(type(result.value)
# int

The table below shows how values are converted.

SNMPVariable.snmp_type	Python type
INTEGER32	int
INTEGER	int
UNSIGNED32	int
GAUGE	int
IPADDR	ipaddress.IPv4Address/ipaddress.IPv6Address
OCTETSTR	(read note below)
TICKS	datetime.timedelta
OPAQUE
OBJECTID
NETADDR	ipaddress.IPv4Address/ipaddress.IPv6Address
COUNTER64	int
NULL	None
BITS	int
UINTEGER	int

The OCTETSTR SNMP type is commonly used as a container for values that cannot be represented in any other SNMP type. It is impossible to know the correct interpretation of an OCTETSTR without parsing the relevant SNMP MIB.