Re: ✘Draft GPSD-MIB

[Gary E. Miller]

Yo Mike!

On Thu, 7 Jul 2022 08:42:14 +0100
Mike Simpson <mikie.simpson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Im not sure why you would want to use a network monitoring protocol
> to relay that information. 

It has been a frequently requested feature for many years, and led
to the contribution of gpssnmp to the gpsd project.

gpsd and NTPSec have many small programs (gpscsv, ntplogtmp, ntploggps,
etc.) that could be replaced with standard SNMP clients if gpsd had
working SNMP support.

The ntpviz program uses ntploggps for its visualizations.  Adding
visualzations would be easier with SNMP in gpsd.

Many people use MRTG, CACTUS, and Zabbix to do large scale monitoring.
They all interface trivially to SNMP.  I personnly use, and depend on,
Zabbix.  With SNMP for gpsd, I could use Zabbix to alert me to down gpsd
daemons, insead of waiting for the associated ntpd to send alerts.

> Wouldn’t you want fix/no fix, rtk/ no rtk etc on the basis that you
> could then be aware of a problem without being on the box which is
> what snmp was for? 

If you look in the Draft MIB, fox mode (None, 2D, 3D) is in there.  Once
those actually work, adding datum like status (RTK, DGPS, simulated, etc.)
will be easy.  Potentially everything from gpsd JSON could have an OID.

But no point having a 100% complete MIB, and 0% implementation.

What gets added, and when, will depend on user requests.

> Including data that gpsd gives out freely already seems an odd way to
> skin the cat. 

Many people have problems understanding and processing gpsd JSON.  It
is a PITA to interace that to MRTG, CACTI, Zabbix, etc.  Adding an SNMP
option makes interfacing to those types of programs trivial.

Another advantage, SNMP is UDP based.  As we have recently seen on this
list, maintaining a TCP connection for mobile applications is hard.  An
SNMP/UDP transport will be much more robust in the face of bad networks.

Finally, like all open source, if it does not solve a problem you have,
feel free to ignore it.

RGDS
GARY
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary E. Miller Rellim 109 NW Wilmington Ave., Suite E, Bend, OR 97703
        gem@rellim.com  Tel:+1 541 382 8588

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    "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it." - Lord Kelvin

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