Twisted SNMP Patch Question

[Greg Cooper]

Hello,

I have a question about this from the NOTES:
The latest TwistedSNMP version (0.3.13) contains a bug that manifests in
table
retrieval operations. Timeouts and retries aren't handled properly, and
this
may cause slow or otherwise busy devices to be bombarded with requests from
NAV. The `contrib/patches` directory contains a patch for TwistedSNMP that
solves this problem. The patch has been submitted upstream, but not yet
accepted into a new release. Alternatively, you can install `pynetsnmp` for
improved performance.

I think I am running into the Twisted SNMP timeout issues talked about
here. So my question is this: When it says, "Alternatively, you can
install pynetsnmp for improved performance" does that mean that instead of
patching TwistedSNMP, i can just do an apt-get install pynetsnmp and then I
don't have to worry about the Twisted SNMP library's problems?

If so, do I have to uninstall twisted SNMP?

If I still have to patch Twisted, then what is the best way for me to go
from using the standard debian packaged TwistedSNMP to using the patched
one I build from scratch? I don't want to be stuck where I have both
installed, but it is still using the old version.

Thanks in advance,

Greg

[Morten Brekkevold]

Post by Greg Cooper
I think I am running into the Twisted SNMP timeout issues talked about
here. So my question is this: When it says, "Alternatively, you can
install pynetsnmp for improved performance" does that mean that instead of
patching TwistedSNMP, i can just do an apt-get install pynetsnmp and then I
don't have to worry about the Twisted SNMP library's problems?

Yes. On Debian, the package is called python-pynetsnmp. I think I
already posted about this on the list already, but if you're running
Debian Lenny, then using python-pynetsnmp may cause ipdevpoll to
segfault.

Post by Greg Cooper
If so, do I have to uninstall twisted SNMP?

Not at all. ipdevpoll will pick pynetsnmp if available, falling back to
TwistedSNMP if not.

Post by Greg Cooper
If I still have to patch Twisted, then what is the best way for me to go
from using the standard debian packaged TwistedSNMP to using the patched
one I build from scratch? I don't want to be stuck where I have both
installed, but it is still using the old version.
Thanks in advance,

Although it seems dirty, the files installed by the TwistedSNMP package
can be patched directly on a running system, since it's just Python code
and not compiled binaries. As soon as the TwistedSNMP package is
upgraded or reinstalled the patch will be lost, however.

For the servers we operate, we took the twistedsnmp source package from
Debian, added the patch to the patches directory, rebuilt the package
with an updated release number and added it to our internal package
repository.