Editing Management information base (section)

{{short description|Database used for managing the entities in a communication network}}
{{Refimprove|date=February 2009}}

A '''management information base''' ('''MIB''') is a database used for managing the entities in a [[communication network]]. Most often associated with the [[Simple Network Management Protocol]] (SNMP), the term is also used more generically in contexts such as in [[Open Systems Interconnection|OSI]]/[[ISO]] [[Network management model]]. While intended to refer to the complete collection of management information available on an entity, it is often used to refer to a particular subset, more correctly referred to as MIB-module.

Objects in the MIB are defined using a subset of Abstract Syntax Notation One ([[ASN.1]]) called  "Structure of Management Information Version 2 (SMIv2)" {{IETF RFC|2578}}. The software that performs the parsing is a MIB compiler. 

The database is hierarchical (tree-structured) and each entry is addressed through an [[object identifier]] (OID). [[Internet]] documentation [[Request for Comments|RFC]]s discuss MIBs, notably {{IETF RFC|1155}}, "Structure and Identification of Management Information for [[TCP/IP]] based internets", and its two companions, {{IETF RFC|1213}}, "Management Information Base for Network Management of TCP/IP-based internets", and {{IETF RFC|1157}}, "A Simple Network Management Protocol".