SNMP v2: What is the difference between SNMP v2c and SNMP v2u

Question

I usually hear about SNMP v2c. But recently I came across v2u when configuring an SNMP agent.

What are the differences between the SNMP v2 flavors v2c and v2u?

And which is the more recent version among these two?

Answer 1

• SNMPv2u is a user-based security model, as specified in RFC 1909 and RFC 1910.
• SNMPv2c is a common community-based security model.

SNMP 2u offers per-user authentication, similar to SNMPv3. SNMPv2u never really took off in the wild; anyone who wants per-user authentication uses SNMPv3. For more details (and there are a lot), consider this article in the Simple Times.

That said, I'm not even sure how many agents support SNMPv2u; however it isn't many if they do. NET-SNMP doesn't even have an option for -v2u