Can radmind push updates to clients?

By: Richard Glaser - Revised: 2006-05-30 devin

No, radmind supports the pull model, it DOES NOT support PUSH and it isn't planned for future releases. You can use SSH, trigger file, a web page with cURL or other methods to give pseudo-push functionality.

The pull model and the push model designate two well-known approaches for exchanging data between two entities. The newspaper metaphor is a simple illustration of these models: if you want to read your favorite newspaper everyday, you can either go and buy it every morning, or subscribe to it once and then receive it automatically at home. The former is an example of pull,the latter of push.

The pull model is based on the request/response paradigm (called data polling, or simply polling, in traditional SNMP-based network management); the client sends a request to the server, then the server answers, either synchronously or asynchronously.

The push model, conversely, is based on the publish, subscribe, distribute paradigm. In this model, agents first advertise what MIBs they support, and what SNMP notifications they can send; the administrator then subscribes the manager (the NMS) to the data he/she is interested in, specifies how often the manager should receive this data, and disconnects. Later on, each agent individually takes the initiative to “push” data to the manager, either on a regular basis via a scheduler (e.g., for network monitoring) or asynchronously (e.g., to send SNMP notifications).