During the install of the Novell Management Agent for Windows, there is a prompt for a conflict of HOSTMIBs. Which should I choose?

The Host-Resource MIB is a standard MIB (HOSTMIB) and the implementation of this provides the management station with the nodes resource detail like memory, processor, etc. Microsoft provides the implementation for this MIB in the C:\...\SYSTEM32\HOSTMIB.DLL,. Novell also provides the implementation for the same Host-Resource MIB in the file N_NTHOST.DLL. The option is with the user to choose between the two implementations.

If the Microsoft implementation is used (user chooses not to overwrite Microsofts implementation with the Novell implementation), the response for any management query will be from the Microsoft's Host-Resource MIB implementation because Novell's implementation will not be loaded.

If the Novell implementation is used (user chooses to overwrite Microsofts implementation with the Novell implementation), the response for any management query will be from Novell's Host-Resource MIB implementation because Microsoft's implementation will not be loaded.

With respect to non-Novell SNMP implementations, like Dell Open Manage, the same functionality is provided by Microsoft's or Novell's HOSTMIB implementation. The communication is through the SNMP standard and it is the SNMP service that frames the packet and is sent to management stations.

To switch between Microsoft's and Novell's HOSTMIB provider, it is necessary to re-install the Server Management Agent and select the other mib.