This read-write setting sets the access privilege granted to a specific SNMP community string: read-only (ro) or read-write (rw). An admin restricts most communities to read-only so monitoring tools can poll status without being able to alter the switch's configuration. For example, setting a monitoring community's privilege to ro(1) lets a network management system read interface counters and alarms but blocks it from being able to push any configuration change to the switch.