MIB Navigator / News: Recent posts

I haven't touched this project in a while, but I just found out that MIB Navigator doesn't work with Java 1.6. I guess I should fix that.

Though I hate to break the 100+ download streak v1.0 has been on, MIB Navigator v1.0.1 and MIBToXMLConverter v0.9 have been released. There are several fixes, including a fix for a bug in the SMI MIB parsing code and a rewrite of the converter to use a proper DOM tree to build the XML.

MIB Navigator 1.0 has been released.
Changes include two new input fields: timeout and port.

A new version of the MIB to XML converter is completed, and it finally builds a proper DOM and pretty prints it for easier viewing. I will upload it soon. In addition, a new version of MIB Navigator that offers more configurability, such as the SNMP port number, timeout, etc. is on the way too.

Finally, the reason for no real news in a while: I've been playing with C#. The similarities with Java made it very familiar, and there are pros and cons to the differences I won't go in to here. Anyway, I've managed to port MIB Navigator to C# as a learning experience. It's Windows only, unfortunately, since it was developed using Visual Studio 2005 and uses some .NET 2.0 features. However, it might be to some people's taste if I ever get around to finishing it off and releasing it.

I've just uploaded the Java 1.4.2 compatible versions of both MIB Navigator v0.9.1 and the MIB to XML Converter v0.2. As usual, JAXP 1.3 will have to be downloaded seperately for Navigator.

As for where development is headed next, I'll probably work on a converter that builds a proper DOM tree and then writes the XML file so that it can validate or at least ensure well-formedness and UTF-8 encoding.

Busy day, I know, but I've been continuing work since the last release. While users may not notice much, quite a bit has changed internally.
NOTE: The converter that was just released creates XML files compatible with this version of MIB Navigator.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mibnavigator/

The converter I just released creates files that work with the lastest MIB Navigator, which supports a different version of the schema. Normally I wouldn't break backwards compatibility, but in this case it was necessary. In other words, look for a new release of Navigator very soon.

The utility I've developed and have been using to convert SMI format MIB files into the XML format used by MIB Navigator has finally been released. Instructions are included in the .zip's readme. As usual, the current version is for use with Java 5.0, but a 1.4.2 version will be released soon.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mibnavigator/

Surprisingly, the total download count is almost to 100. I've only downloaded it twice for testing, so if anyone out there has any feedback, I'd appreciate it.

Previously, all MIB XML files had to be single lines with no extraneous white space because new lines and tabs seemed to cause errors.

I fixed that problem. For most elements, extra white space nodes are not a problem because I specifically get elements by name. However, there was one spot in the code where simply the first child of an element was referenced and not that required element's actual name. This would return something like "\n\t\t\t" when the XMl file had been formatted.

Today I successfully tested MIB Navigator on another Java 1.4.2 install using the java parameter -Djava.endorsed.dirs="endorsedFilesDirectory" for the JAXP 1.3 JARs, since write access was forbidden to the main drive (it was a public terminal, so I installed everything in My Documents). So, if you really wan to use the 1.4.2 version and don't have write permission to the Java home folder, use that method.... read more

I just uploaded the Java 1.4.2 compatible version of MIB Navigator. It works the same as the Java 5.0 version, but be sure to follow the extra instructions for installing and using JAXP 1.3 with Java 1.4.2.

MIB Navigator, a project under development in my spare time for the better part of a year, has been released to the public for the first time. What started as a small experiment has grown into quite the learning experience. I'm sure the code is far from perfect, but right now it works.

The .9 version can be downloaded from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mibnavigator/. It includes the main application in self-executing JAR form along with all necessary files. The source is included in another zip file within the main archive.... read more