The Net-SNMP and supplementary products support the AgentX protocol (RFC 2741) in both master and agent roles. Use of this mechanism requires that the daemon has agentx module explicitly enabled (e.g. via the snmpd.conf file).
There are two directives specifically relevant to running as an AgentX master:
master agentx
will enable the AgentX functionality and cause the agent to start listening for incoming AgentX registrations. This can also be activated by specifying the -x command line option (to specify an alternative listening socket).
agentXPerms SOCKPERMS [DIRPERMS [USER|UID [GROUP|GID]]]
Defines the permissions and ownership of the AgentX Unix Domain socket, and the parent directories of this socket. SOCKPERMS and DIRPERMS must be octal digits (see chmod(1)). By default this socket will only be accessible to agents which have the same userid as the agent.
There is one directive specifically relevant to running as an AgentX agent:
agentXPingInterval NUM
will make the agent try and reconnect every NUM seconds to the master if it ever becomes (or starts) disconnected.
The remaining directives are relevant to both AgentX master and agents:
agentXSocket [<transport-specifier>:]<transport-address>[,...]
defines the address the master agent listens at, or the agent should connect to. The default is the Unix Domain socket /var/agentx/master. Another common alternative is tcp:localhost:705.
agentXTimeout NUM
defines the timeout period (NUM seconds) for an AgentX request. Default is 1 second.
agentXRetries NUM
defines the number of retries for an AgentX request. Default is 5 retries.