A MIF file is an ASCII text file that conforms to the Management Information Format (MIF) described in the DMI Specification. The MIF file for a component defines the manageable aspects of the component and provides this information to management applications through the DMI. Because the DMI does not assume that a management application can determine anything about a component in the system, it is important that the component provide all significant information about its manageable characteristics through the MIF file.

The steps involved for defining a MIF file include:

• Determining what characteristics of the component can be managed
  
• Defining the groups into which these characteristics will be organized
  
• Defining the attributes that make up the groups

A MIF file can contain as few as one group with the six standard attributes or as many groups and attributes as you choose.