Printer Management

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Printer Management

• Lars Fiedler
• Cody Spencer

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Outline

• Printer Management
• Printer Working Group (PWG)
• MIB Design (RFC 1759)
• MIB Capabilities
• Version 2 Draft
• MIB Extensions

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Printer Management

• Why do we need it?
• Why dont people use it?
• End-users problem
• Low expectations
• What are some of the issues?

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Printer Working Group

• Developing printer industry standards since 1991
• Chartered Printer MIB Working Group to address
  printer management needs
• RFC 1759 Printer MIB (March 1995)
• Printer Working Group

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Printer MIB DesignRFC 1759

• Covers FC(A)P of FCAPS
• Everything is a table
• Agent flexibility
• Difficult to manage
• Mandatory MIB groups
• General Printer, Input, Output, Marker, Channel,
  Interpreter, Console, Alerts

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MIB Interactions

• Support MIB II
• Needs interface group
• Support Host Resources MIB
• Needs device and storage groups
• Details

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Printer MIB Capabilities

• Printer Management, not printing management
• Printer Information
• Descriptions - configurations
• Status - operating state
• Alerts - reportable events
• Accounting / Inventory

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Printer Status

• Overall Status Located in HR MIB
• hrPrinterStatus
• hrPrinterDetectedErrorState (bit conditioned)
• Each sub-unit has a status
• sum of 5 distinct values Availability,
  Non-Critical, Critical, On-line, and Transitioning

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Alerts

• Critical vs. Non-critical
• Table polling vs. Traps events
• Binary vs. Simple
• Attributes
• Severity level, training level, code, time,
  description, group

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Marker Group

• Marker is the mechanism that produces marks on
  the print media
• Attributes
• prtMarkerCounterUnit
• Impressions, lines, characters, feet, hours
• prtMarkerLifeCount
• Roll Over? At 25 ipm 330 yrs
• prtMarkerPowerOnCount

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Marker Supply Group

• Supplies - toner, maintenance/drum kit
• Attributes
• prtMarkerSuppliesType
• prtMarkerSuppliesUnit
• prtMarkerSuppliesLevel (read-write)
• -2 unknown, -3 there is some left
• prtMakerSuppliesMarkerIndex
• prtMarkerSuppliesColorantIndex

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Printer MIB V2

• Changes
• General cleanup
• Updated enums, added more enums.
• New variables
• Printer serial number, of critical errors in
  alert table, administratively assigned printer
  name, start up and banner page control objects,
  manual and input tray switching objects.

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Printer MIB Walk

• Wormwood
• Rosalyn

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Printer MIB Extensions

• Printer Finishing MIB
• Job MIB - RFC 2707
• IPP Internet Printing Protocol RFC 2910, 2911,
  3196, 3239, 3380, 3381, 3382

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Questions?