[j-nsp] SNMP monitoring of BGP sessions

[Ras]

Hi all,

I'm currently running some hand-written (ie possibly buggy) BGP
monitoring code, using SNMP.

My understanding (and experience from my Ciscos) is that if
bgpPeerState is anything but 'established' (6) and bgpPeerAdminStatus
is in 'start' (2) then there is a problem, ie the device thinks the
peering should be up but it isn't.

In general, it seems that if bgpPeerAdminStatus is in 'stop' (1) then
the peer has been configured admin down and can be safely ignored.

Unfortunately, on the Junipers when bgpPeerState drops into 'idle' (1)
the bgpPeerAdminStatus drops into 'stop' (1). This seems to me to
indicate that there is no way to tell the difference between a peering
that is down but should be up, and a peering that is admin down.

Has anyone else seen this / can give me some advice on how to
distinguish between failed sessions and hard down sessions?

Thanks,
Ras