install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install libsmi

provider-native install command

overview

Package summary

Library to Access SMI MIB Information

Project links

Homepage

Commands and aliases

smicache
smidiff
smidump
smilint
smiquery
smistrip
smixlate

history

Project history and usage

libsmi is a C library and tool suite for reading, validating, converting, comparing, and querying SMI MIB and SPPI PIB modules used in SNMP and network-management tooling.

Project history

The libsmi README says the project began in 1999 as part of Frank Strauss's master's thesis at the Technical University of Braunschweig, supervised and initiated by Juergen Schoenwaelder. The package grew into a library, tools, test patterns, documentation, and bundled IETF and IANA MIB and PIB module collections.

The official project page describes a two-layer architecture: upper layers expose an API and common internal data structures to applications, while lower drivers access persistent MIB and PIB repositories. It supports SMIv1/v2 MIB module files, SPPI PIB module files, and an early SMIng driver.

Adoption history

libsmi was adopted by network-management and packet-analysis tools that needed a parser and model for MIB data rather than hand-written text parsing. The official tools page names GxSNMP, tcpdump, and a DMH Software MIB compiler as examples of projects that used libsmi.

The download page says libsmi had packages for Debian, RedHat, Mandrake, and SuSE, and the Homebrew input records broader packaging across Alpine, Debian, Fedora, MacPorts, Nix, Ubuntu, and zypper ecosystems.

How it is used

The library gives applications a programmer-friendly API for MIB and PIB module information. The bundled commands cover common maintainer workflows: `smilint` checks modules, `smidump` converts and dumps formats, `smidiff` compares revisions, `smiquery` asks for individual objects, `smixlate` translates identifiers, and `smistrip` extracts modules from RFCs and drafts.

Users can configure behavior with global and user-level configuration files and with the SMIPATH environment variable for module search paths.

Why package nerds care

libsmi is beloved by the sort of package nerd who debugs SNMP by reading MIBs: it turns standards-track network-management text into parseable structures and small Unix tools. It also packages a snapshot-style archive of IETF and IANA modules, making it part parser and part standards museum.

Its aging release cadence and 2021 move from Subversion-era source management to a public GitLab repository make it a good example of mature infrastructure software whose value persists long after the original research push.

Timeline

1999: The libsmi README says the project began as Frank Strauss's master's thesis at TU Braunschweig.
2002-06-21: The libsmi 0.4 announcement described the library, tools, SPPI parser additions, and bundled standard MIB modules.
2008-04-18: The ChangeLog records the libsmi 0.4.8 release.
2021-01: The download page says the code was moved from Subversion to a public GitLab repository without updates.
2021-01-15: The public GitLab project page records the repository creation date.

Related projects

Related standards and tools include SNMP, SMIv1/v2, SPPI, IETF and IANA MIB/PIB modules, tcpdump, GxSNMP, Net-SNMP-adjacent workflows, and RFC authoring or review pipelines that need MIB extraction and validation.

Sources

security posture

Risk level: green

library-like package without higher-risk signals.

Risk classifier

green risk · low confidence · appliance

Why

library-like package without higher-risk signals

Signals

metadata:library-like

Install behavior

No Homebrew bottle metadata was recorded.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

local files

Configuration and credential file locations

These source-backed paths show where this package keeps local settings or durable credentials. Automic Vault can use them as review targets for secret scanning, migration, and command approval.

Configuration files

Config paths the tool may read or write during local use.

Unix: ${prefix}/etc/smi.conf~/.smirc

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure	Note
`smicache`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`smidiff`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`smidump`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`smilint`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`smiquery`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`smistrip`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`smixlate`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-08-03

manager version0.5.0

manager updated

local dataunknown

upstreamnot available

latest detectednot detected

okNo freshness warnings were generated.

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:libsmi
Version	0.5.0
Package manager	Homebrew
Homepage	https://www.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de/projects/libsmi/
Bottle	not recorded
Service	none declared

package graph

Links come from deterministic package relationships, av.db category and tag curation, ecosystem matches, and package hub membership.

source trail

Generated from repository data

This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.

Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub.

combined/libsmi.yml

Used sources

Geiger risk classifier
Nucleus package database
curated configuration and credential file locations
curated package history
pkgdb category and tag curation

Install libsmi with Homebrew