Description: An indication of whether messages sent on behalf of this user to/from the SNMP engine 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 conceptual 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.

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

If a set operation tries to change the value of an existing instance of this object to any value other than usmNoPrivProtocol, 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 usmNoPrivProtocol, then the corresponding instance of usmUserAuthProtocol cannot have a value of usmNoAuthProtocol. If it does, then an 'inconsistentValue' error must be returned.

The value of an instance of this object directly maps to a corresponding instance of usmUserPrivProtocol in the usmUserTable.