ARC-MIB

MIB Reference — IPNetwork Monitor · Updated October 05, 2026

All MIBs › ARC-MIB

Organization: IETF Distributed Management Working Group

Last Updated: 2004-09-09

Category: Alarm and Event Management

Description: Defines an alarm reporting control mechanism that allows a manager to suppress or defer alarm condition reporting based on resource ID and alarm type.

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

What Is ARC-MIB?

ARC-MIB, standardized in RFC 3878, defines an Alarm Reporting Control mechanism that lets an SNMP manager suppress, defer, or otherwise control the reporting of specific alarm conditions detected by a managed resource. It exposes a table of controllable alarm entries keyed by resource and alarm type, each with a configurable state, timers for suppression/deferral, and row status for creating or removing control entries. This MIB is explicitly a faults/alarms management tool: it is used to monitor and manage which fault conditions (of any kind reported by the underlying device, from hardware failures to software faults) are currently being actively reported versus suppressed, and to track how much time remains before a deferred alarm resumes reporting via arcNalmTimeRemaining. It is a generic, vendor-neutral standards-based MIB designed to sit alongside whatever underlying MIB actually detects the alarm conditions (e.g. entity, interface, or vendor hardware MIBs), providing a common suppression/control layer over them. It is typically deployed on any managed network element that needs fine-grained control over alarm noise, such as during planned maintenance windows. Engineers implementing or auditing this functionality typically reference the ARC-MIB RFC/standard documentation for the authoritative specification.

IPNetwork Monitor allows you to monitor SNMP objects defined in ARC-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; applicable to any SNMP-managed network device or system reporting alarm conditions

Monitoring Examples

An operator would poll arcTable/arcEntry to see current arcState for each arcIndex/arcAlarmType combination, confirming whether a given alarm type is active, suppressed, or in a timed deferral. Checking arcNalmTimeRemaining would show how much longer a temporarily-suppressed alarm (arcNotificationId) will remain silenced, letting the operator create a new arcRowStatus entry with arcTITimeInterval or arcCDTimeInterval to extend or cancel a maintenance-window suppression before the underlying fault condition is meant to resume being reported.

What Can Be Monitored

  • alarm reporting state per resource/alarm type
  • time remaining until deferred alarm resumes reporting
  • alarm suppression/control entry configuration
  • storage type of control entries
Imported Objects

From ALARM-MIB

ResourceId

From SNMPv2-CONF

MODULE-COMPLIANCE
OBJECT-GROUP

From SNMPv2-SMI

MODULE-IDENTITY
OBJECT-TYPE
Unsigned32
mib-2

From SNMPv2-TC

RowStatus
StorageType
TEXTUAL-CONVENTION
OIDs

RFC description

Controls resource alarm reporting conditions and time interval management per RFC 3878.

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Download ARC-MIB