Subject: [eman] Question about draft-ietf-eman-battery-mib-08.txt

From: Alan Luchuk <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 14:40:25 -0500 (EST)

Hello,

I have a question about the BATTERY-MIB in draft-ietf-eman-battery-mib-08.txt.

The batteryActualCharge MIB object is defined as:

    batteryActualCharge OBJECT-TYPE
        SYNTAX      Unsigned64TC
        UNITS       "milliampere hours"
        MAX-ACCESS  read-only
        STATUS      current
        DESCRIPTION
            "This object provides the actual charge of the battery
            in units of milliampere hours (mAh).

            Note that the actual charge needs to be measured and is
            typically an estimate based on observed discharging and
            charging cycles of the battery.

            A value of 'ffffffff'H indicates that the actual charge
            cannot be determined."
        ::= { batteryEntry 16 }

The batteryAlarmLowCharge MIB object is defined as:

    batteryAlarmLowCharge OBJECT-TYPE
        SYNTAX      Unsigned32
        UNITS       "milliampere hours"
        MAX-ACCESS  read-write
        STATUS      current
        DESCRIPTION
            "This object provides the lower threshold value for object
            batteryActualCharge.  If the value of object
            batteryActualCharge falls below this threshold,
            a low battery alarm will be raised.  The alarm procedure may
            include generating a batteryLowNotification.

            A value of 0 indicates that no alarm will be raised for any
            value of object batteryActualCharge."
        ::= { batteryEntry 20 }

Note the difference in the SYNTAX clauses.  The threshold object 
(batteryAlarmLowCharge) is an Unsigned32, but the instrumentation object
(batteryActualCharge) is an Unsigned64TC.  

Is this difference in types intentional?   If this difference is intentional, 
could the comparison process be documented in the DESCRIPTION for the
batteryAlarmLowCharge object?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
--Alan

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 Alan Luchuk               SNMP Research, Inc.          Voice:  +1 865 573 1434
 Senior Software Engineer  3001 Kimberlin Heights Road  FAX:    +1 865 573 9197
 [email-masked]           Knoxville, TN  37920-9716    http://www.snmp.com/
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