Thanks for your comments, On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Rick Cochran wrote:
RC> An aesthetic objection: as with SMTP, there is _nothing_ "simple" RC> about SNMP. Go to the bookstore and measure the thickness of the RC> books. :-) Well, you don't need to read think books to get what you need. A couple of RFCs are enough. You can't blame me for what they named the protocol though. :-) C(omplex) NMP sells badly. RC> For some printers, the hrDeviceStatus and hrPrinterStatus variables RC> alone are not sufficient to determine when it is safe to read the page RC> counter. This is true, but then these do not follow the RFC standards either, sadly. I end that section with "properly". :-) Will see if I should mention something about printer that are not "proper". RC> The prtMarkerLifeCount variable usually (but not always) counts RC> "sheets" (or "impressions * 2") rather than "impressions". This makes RC> it difficult to deal intelligently with duplex printing. Hmm, I have tested with more than 10 printers (from Xerox, HP, OKI, Canon), and they all count impressions, not sheets. The Xerox's do on the other hand always count two impressions per sheet during duplex printing, no matter if the last back page is printed or not. (This is not a major problem though as we are not going to charge any money for printing, just limit excess printing.) During simplex printing, one impression is counted per sheet. RC> As I understand the situation, RFC1759 is a "proposed standard" rather RC> than a "standard", and is implemented to varying degrees by different RC> manufacturers. Yeah, it is listed as a proposed standard. It is from March 1995, so in 2003 it is about time to change it's status, or release another RFC if there were complaints abotu the first. If you look at http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcxx00.html you can see that there are a lot more proposed standards than standards. RFC1759 is not experimental or in draft mode anyway. RC> All printer manufacturers I know of implement their own "enterprise" RC> MIBs for their printers in addition to an RFC1759 MIB. Yes, but a general solution can only use RFC1759. It is easy to slap the RFC in the face of the manufacturer. I had Canon walking out on me with the tail between their legs, admitting that their implementation was not correct. Hence no sale with that model. Xerox and HP seems good so far. Xerox also went out of their way to work with us and correct any problems in their printers if we found them standard incompliant. RC> SNMP V2 is somewhat lacking in security. RC> RC> SNMP V3 is more secure, but is too complex for human beings. Isn't this rather "irrelevant" here, as connecting to port 9100 is not much secure either? Not many printers support SSL connections today. Secure the network. Reading the number of impressions with PJL over 9100 could just as easily be faked as a UDP packet. If the users have a way to get onto the network with the printers, all bets are off. RC> In spite of all this, I still think that your conclusions are correct RC> and that SNMP is the best solution. If you, like me, want and need to pick one solution, yes. We wanted _one_ way to handle this accounting dilemma, and not 25 work arounds and half-good implementations. Our solution will fail with some printers, but so will the 25-work-arounds-and-half-good one do. (There is always another work around.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- YOU MUST BE A LIST MEMBER IN ORDER TO POST TO THE LPRNG MAILING LIST The address you post from MUST be your subscription address If you need help, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (or lprng-requests or lprng-digest-requests) with the word 'help' in the body. For the impatient, to subscribe to a list with name LIST, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with: | example: subscribe LIST <mailaddr> | subscribe lprng-digest [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe LIST <mailaddr> | unsubscribe lprng [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have major problems, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word LPRNGLIST in the SUBJECT line. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
