Description: An indication of whether messages sent on behalf of this user to/from the SNMP engine identified by usmUserEngineID, can be protected from disclosure, and if so, the type of privacy protocol which is used.

An instance of this object is created concurrently with the creation of any other object instance for the same user (i.e., as part of the processing of the set operation which creates the first object instance in the same concsystual row).

If an initial set operation (i.e. at row creation time) tries to set a value for an unknown or unsupported protocol, then a 'wrongValue' error must be returned.

The value will be overwritten/set when a set operation is performed on the corresponding instance of usmUserCloneFrom.

Once instantiated, the value of such an instance of this object can only be changed via a set operation to the value of the NoPrivProtocol.

If a set operation tries to change the value of an existing instance of this object to any value other than NoPrivProtocol, then an 'inconsistentValue' error must be returned.

Note that if any privacy protocol is used, then you must also use an authentication protocol. In other words, if usmUserPrivProtocol is set to anything else than NoPrivProtocol, then the corresponding instance of usmUserAuthProtocol cannot have a value of

usmNoAuthProtocol. If it does, then an 'inconsistentValue' error must be returned.