Description: The prefix length of the external IP address used for wildcarding. A value of 0 indicates a full wildcard; in this case, the value of midcomRuleExternalIpAddr is irrelevant. If midcomRuleExternalIpVersion has a value of ipv4(1), then a value > 31 indicates no wildcarding at all. If midcomRuleExternalIpVersion has a value of ipv4(2), then a value > 127 indicates no wildcarding at all. A MIDCOM-MIB implementation that does not support IP address wildcarding MUST implement this object as read-only with a value of 128. A MIDCOM that does not support wildcarding based on prefix length MAY restrict allowed values for this object to 0 and 128.

This object is used as input to a request for establishing

a policy rule as well as for indicating the properties of an established policy rule.

If object midcomRuleOperStatus of the same entry has the value newEntry(1), setting(2), or reserved(7), then this object can be written by a manager in order to specify the prefix length of the external IP address for which an enable policy rule is requested to be established. Writing to this object in any state other than newEntry(1), setting(2), or reserved(7) will always fail with an 'inconsistentValue' error.

Note that this error code is SNMP specific. If the MIB module is used with other protocols than SNMP, errors with similar semantics specific to those protocols should be returned.

If object midcomRuleOperStatus of the same entry has the value enabled(8), then this object will have the value that it had before the transition to this state.

If object midcomRuleOperStatus of the same entry has a value other than newEntry(1), setting(2), reserved(7), or enabled(8), then the value of this object is irrelevant.