Registering an SNMP Agent Application

In addition to SNMP manager operations, the WinSNMP API version 2.0 also supports SNMP agent operations.

To register a WinSNMP application as an SNMP agent, the application can call the SnmpListen function. This function informs the Microsoft WinSNMP implementation that an SNMP entity will be acting in the role of an SNMP agent. The application can also call SnmpListen to inform the implementation when it will no longer be acting as an agent.

If an application calls the SnmpListen function and passes the value SNMPAPI_ON in the lStatus parameter, the following actions occur:

1. The entity that will be functioning in an SNMP agent role binds to its assigned port, and "listens" for incoming SNMP message requests.
2. The agent uses application-specific logic to process each SNMP request.
3. The agent forms appropriate responses to each request.
4. The agent transmits the response to the requesting entity by calling the SnmpSendMsg function. When the agent calls SnmpSendMsg, it specifies the address of the agent in the srcEntity parameter, and the address of the remote manager entity in the dstEntity parameter. (These values are the reverse of the values the agent entity received in these parameters when it called the SnmpRecvMsg function to retrieve an SNMP request.)

For more information about SNMP management applications and agent applications, see About SNMP.