A method for interacting messages based on a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is disclosed by the present invention. The method includes: when receiving an SNMP message sent from an SNMP management station, an SNMP proxy estimating a suggested timeout value of the SNMP message and feeding the suggested timeout value back to the SNMP management station; and the SNMP management station waiting for a response of the above SNMP message according to the suggested timeout value. A corresponding SNMP proxy is further disclosed by the present invention. Since the method of the present invention adopts the technical measure of dynamically determining the timeout period of the management station in an interaction manner between the SNMP management station and the SNMP proxy, the drawbacks of manually setting timeout period are overcome, occurrences of timeout event are effectively reduced, and the efficiency of implementing network management using SNMP is improved.