Sending SNMP informs from Procurve switches

[bjulin]

There are various instructions posted around the web, some of them copies of official HP manuals, saying that they tell you how to send SNMPv3 informs from an HP Procurve switch.

These instructions are obviously completely wrong, because in order to send an Inform (request) you must enter the engine ID of the management station in the switch configuration.  Those instructions do not include any way to do so.  Also the SNMP user credentials for sending the informs need to be cryptographically salted using this engine ID (and if SNMP standards are followed, the orginal cleartext is disposed of afterwards).  These instructions present no way to designate a user as a remote user and tie that user to an engine ID when you enter their passphrases.  As far as I can tell, these instructions are misinterpreting a feature that allows the switch to receive informs from other sources as a feature that allows it to send informs.  The manuals themselves say only that receiving SNMPv3 informs is supported, however they then go on to provide ways to specify a target address and timeouts for SNMPv3 informs.  This is very confusing and rasises the question as to what a Procurve switch does, exactly with an SNMPv3 inform which it has received -- forward it via SNMPv2c?

So my question is, can Procurve switches send SNMPv3 inform requests to a management station, which models (I have 2610,2615,2620,2920 at present) can do so, and where can I find documentation for the commands to create remote users?  Does anyone have this working, and have working config statements, including statements that are not shown in a "show run" because they must be deleted to follow the SNMP spec?