SNMP Applet Server (SAS)

Java applets are Java programs that can run in a Java-enabled World-Wide-Web browser like Netscape Navigator. These browsers often place restrictions on the capabilities of the applets, sometimes for valid security reasons. For example, currently an applet in Netscape's browser cannot communicate directly with any host on the network, except the web server from which the applet was downloaded. (This does not apply to applets loaded from the local filesystem.) These restrictions may be relaxed soon, through providing the user some choices, but we're not there yet.

For applets, the SNMP Package provides special support to get around the security restriction above. Advent provides a Java program for the web server called the SNMP Applet Server (SAS) that allows the applet to send and receive SNMP packets to and from any managed devices accessible from the applet host. You will need to run this program on your web server if you intend to use the browser without loading the JDK on your local machine and using it's class files with your browser.

The SASClient class in the Advent SNMP Package, provides a means for applets to transparently use this mechanism to get around the security restrictions for sockets and files.

In addition to allowing for communication with SNMP peers, SAS also allows saving of files in a SASusers sub-directory of the applet directory. This directory must exist for saving of files to work.

The following are the key aspects of SAS, and it's usage.

Please see the file sas_advanced.html in the docs directory for details on the advanced features in SAS.


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