ALARM-MIB

MIB Reference — IPNetwork Monitor · Updated September 09, 2026

All MIBsALARM-MIB

Organization: IETF Distributed Management Working Group

Last Updated: 2004-09-09

Category: Alarm and Event Management

Description: Provides a generic model for storing and managing active alarms on a device, including alarm models, severity levels, and state transitions.

IPNetwork Monitor uses several OIDs from this MIB in network discovery and polling the applicable devices. Start monitoring ALARM-MIB with a free 30-day trial of IPNetwork Monitor.

What Is ALARM-MIB?

ALARM-MIB is a vendor-neutral IETF standards MIB (RFC 3877) that provides a generic model for storing and managing a device's list of currently active alarms, independent of the specific technology generating them. It defines alarm model tables describing state transitions, severity, and the varbind data associated with each alarm, plus a parallel active-alarm list reflecting alarms currently in effect on the device, all registered under the ALARM-MIB OID branch established by RFC 3877. This makes it directly useful for monitoring overall device fault status in a technology-agnostic way—any subsystem (power, temperature, interface, process) can register its faults here, so alarmActiveLastChanged and the active alarm table act as a single point of truth for "what's currently wrong with this box." It is explicitly designed to be referenced by other MIBs' notification definitions (via alarmModelNotificationId and alarmModelVarbindIndex/Value), giving it a coordinating dependency on whatever technology-specific MIB actually raised the alarm. It is deployed on any standards-compliant network element wanting a unified alarm/fault list, common in carrier-grade and NMS-integrated equipment.

IPNetwork Monitor allows you to monitor SNMP objects defined in ALARM-MIB. Use the built-in SNMP Monitoring Browser to explore available variables, view their current values and descriptions, and select the objects you want to monitor. You can then create SNMP monitors, configure thresholds, and receive alerts when monitored values change.

Supported Devices

  • vendor-neutral, standards-based MIB, not tied to a specific manufacturer
  • any SNMP-managed network element with an alarm subsystem

Monitoring Examples

An admin would poll alarmModelTable/alarmModelEntry, keyed by alarmModelIndex, checking alarmModelState for current alarm state and alarmModelDescription for a human-readable summary of what's wrong. alarmModelNotificationId and alarmModelVarbindIndex/alarmModelVarbindValue let a management station trace an active alarm back to the specific notification and varbind data that raised it, useful for correlating a generic alarm entry with a vendor-specific trap. A rising alarmActiveLastChanged timestamp signals that the active alarm list has just changed, prompting a re-poll to see what new fault appeared or cleared.

What Can Be Monitored

  • active alarm list
  • alarm state
  • alarm severity/description
  • alarm model last-changed timestamp
  • associated notification/varbind data
Imported Objects

From INET-ADDRESS-MIB

InetAddress
InetAddressType

From RMON2-MIB

ZeroBasedCounter32

From SNMP-FRAMEWORK-MIB

SnmpAdminString

From SNMPv2-CONF

MODULE-COMPLIANCE
NOTIFICATION-GROUP
OBJECT-GROUP

From SNMPv2-SMI

Counter32
Counter64
Gauge32
Integer32
IpAddress
MODULE-IDENTITY
NOTIFICATION-TYPE
OBJECT-TYPE
Opaque
TimeTicks
Unsigned32
mib-2
zeroDotZero

From SNMPv2-TC

DateAndTime
RowPointer
RowStatus
TEXTUAL-CONVENTION
OIDs

RFC description

Generic alarm management system for modeling and storing active alarms in network equipment (RFC 3877).

Start monitoring SNMP-managed network devices (alarm subsystem) with a free 30-day trial of IPNetwork Monitor. Import MIBs, browse SNMP OIDs, create custom SNMP monitors, configure alerts, and monitor any SNMP-enabled network device from a single console.

Download ALARM-MIB