Hi Ira,
Sorry for the thrash - that's what I get for clicking Send too quickly. I've inserted it inline below. Can you or Mike send me information on how to upload a file to that directory? I've never uploaded files to the PWG FTP site before.
Smith
On 2012-11-25, at 11:14 AM, Ira McDonald <blueroofmusic at gmail.com<mailto:blueroofmusic at gmail.com>>
wrote:
Hi Smith,
Thanks for this good start on IPP best practices.
BTW - your plaintext resend lost section 1 w/ the explanation
of the ranking codes, adding a bit of confusion. It would be
a good idea to post a plaintext version in the directory:
ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/ipp/whitepaper
- (informal documents, before a project has been chartered)
I didn't schedule discussion of this document for tomorrow's
joint IPP/Cloud meeting, because we already probably have
too much content (Pete's Cloud Print operations, review of
both Cloud and IPP slides for F2F). I suggest that we could
spend some time on this during the IPP session at the F2F.
My initial high-level response is that we should try to align
the recommendations w/ the new reality of IPP Everywhere
(e.g., the characterization of Bonjour as local subnet only
conflicts w/ the mandatory support for DNS-SD in the IPP
Everywhere spec).
Generally, I think we need to recommend best practices for
*future* IPP printers and clients.
Cheers,
- Ira
Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Chair - Linux Foundation Open Printing WG
Secretary - IEEE-ISTO Printer Working Group
Co-Chair - IEEE-ISTO PWG IPP WG
Co-Chair - TCG Trusted Mobility Solutions WG
Chair - TCG Embedded Systems Hardcopy SG
IETF Designated Expert - IPP & Printer MIB
Blue Roof Music/High North Inc
http://sites.google.com/site/blueroofmusichttp://sites.google.com/site/highnorthinc
mailto:blueroofmusic at gmail.com<mailto:blueroofmusic at gmail.com>
Winter 579 Park Place Saline, MI 48176 734-944-0094
Summer PO Box 221 Grand Marais, MI 49839 906-494-2434
Temporary Cabin *** 2012 only *** 906-494-2523
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Kennedy, Smith (Wireless Architect) <smith.kennedy at hp.com<mailto:smith.kennedy at hp.com>> wrote:
My apologies - I always forget that this reflector will downsample to plain text, and I had cut-and-pasted HTML in to my original posting. Below is a plain text rendering.
Smith
On 2012-11-20, at 3:13 PM, "Kennedy, Smith (Wireless Architect)" <smith.kennedy at hp.com<mailto:smith.kennedy at hp.com>>
wrote:
> Greetings,
>> I had an action item from two conference calls ago to post to the reflector on the subject of IPP protocol "best practices", to enumerate options for how IPP can be used in order to satisfy all or a core set of use cases. The goal we discussed was to come to consensus and then publish the consensus so that the best practices can be adopted as widely as possible, to help encourage a high quality user experience and best performance.
>> All of the IPP specifications describe what can be done with IPP, but we all know that is broad, and with the exception of RFC 3196, nothing has been done to examine how best to use the toolset available via IPP. As well all know, just because something *can* be done doesn't mean it *should* be done. Guidance on how to best use IPP would benefit the IPP user community as a whole.
>> I included the descriptions I have been working on below in-line so that feedback could be provided directly via email rather than by editing a document. If there are suggestions on how to best review these (perhaps one per email thread), let me know and I will re-factor / re-post.
>> Cheers,
> Smith
>> /**
> Smith Kennedy
> Hewlett-Packard Co.
>smith.kennedy at hp.com<mailto:smith.kennedy at hp.com><mailto:smith.kennedy at hp.com<mailto:smith.kennedy at hp.com>>
> */
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
Print Use Cases and Best Practice Solutions Using IPP
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Smith Kennedy
<smith.kennedy at hp.com<mailto:smith.kennedy at hp.com>>
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Use Case Descriptions
2.1. Create a relationship with a particular printer
2.2. Get printer options to populate a print dialog (activity
between doing "File→Print" and presenting the print dialog
UI)
2.3. Check constraints between presented options
2.4. Submitting a Print Job
2.5. Monitoring print job status
2.6. Canceling a print job
2.7. Getting printer supplies status
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Introduction
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The use case descriptions below represent stages or sub-tasks that
users perform in the process of using a printer. Each of these below
include a textual description as well as a series of workflow options
for how it might be implemented using IPP. Each workflow option will
be informally labeled according to its perceived quality, using the
set of labels {"BAD", "MEH", "GOOD", "BETTER", "BEST"}, that are
ordered from least desirable to most desirable.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Use Case Descriptions
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1. Create a relationship with a particular printer
------------
You can’t print to a printer if you cannot establish a connection to
it. Historically, connecting to a printer to establish a
"relationship" with it meant identifying a printer and then creating
a persistent local records and resources for that printer
relationship with your system’s print spooler. This was called a
"print queue", and it involved binding drivers to create the
relationships needed to communicate at the different levels, and then
keeping record of that set of relationships so that it could be
re-used at a later time. The set of printers or other devices the
user’s system might encounter was relatively small and fairly static.
More recent re-thinking of this relationship between client and
printer has resulted in more "dynamic" relationship creation, where
universal drivers can interrogate a device hosting a print service
using a standardized protocol solution stack, and using that
dynamically ascertain and update print service attributes. In this
paradigm, a "persistent" print service record is more like a Web
browser bookmark.
Both paradigms still require a method of identifying the target
devices. That can be done using dynamic service discovery protocols
where the services respond to discovery requests, or explicitly by
name (host name or raw IPv4/IPv6 address).
2.1.1. Discover and select a printer via a discovery protocol
Discovery protocols are used to identify instances of print services
or printers by searching the network for service types or device
types. This helps the user by making it so that they don’t need to do
a physical survey of devices' addresses.
Regardless of the actual discovery protocol used, the APIs driving
the protocols generally can be used in either a synchronous or
asynchronous fashion. Unfortunately, many legacy software systems (as
well as developers) are accustomed to the synchronous model, which is
easily identified by the presence of a "refresh button". The
synchronous model is not as user friendly as the asynchronous model,
but it is somewhat easier to write programs in a synchronous way than
an asynchronous way.
Options
* MEH:
o Perform network discovery with a synchronous API
# Show progress bar
# Discovery.Start()
# sleep(X) where X
# Discovery.Stop()
o Present the results of the discovery
o "Refresh" button restarts process
# Why this is bad:
* list can be stale
* it isn’t "live"
* "Reset" button is unnecessary and is a crutch
o User selects a printer and presses "Continue" or equivalent
* BETTER:
o Perform network discovery with an asynchronous API
# Show List UI widget
# Discovery.Start() with a callback
# callback is called when discovery responses (add or
remove) are received
o User selects a printer and presses "Continue" or equivalent
# Discovery.Stop()
2.1.2. Select a printer via user providing a DNS hostname or raw IPv4
/ IPv6 address
In some cases a discovery protocol is either not adequate or
unnecessary. Examples of when this use case is encountered include
pre-published names or addresses, and also situations where the
target device is not on the local link. (DNS-SD and WS-Discovery are
generally used for link-local discovery, though wide-area variants as
well as LDAP systems may also be used, but are frequently not for
various reasons.)
For each of these options below, the assumption is that the client
has received an address string, and wishes to connect to the
Options
* BAD:
o Let each printer model make up its own path, and depend on
some other protocol to get the resource path
# IPP has no defined standard mechanism to enumerate the
Printer objects' resource paths
* MEH:
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes with printer-uri set to a URI that
was manually entered by the user
# "ipp" URI scheme could be used to encode the hostname and
the resource path
# Having the user enter the URI exposes too many details to
the user, including the detail about the fact that IPP is
actually beiing used. Users need not be aware of which
print protocol is being used.
* GOOD:
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes with printer-uri set to a
well-known Printer resource path
# "/ipp/print"
* BETTER:
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes with printer-uri set to "/"
o examine the "printer-uri-supported" attribute; use the first
URI in the list
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes with printer-uri set to first URI
* BEST:
o IPP Get-Printers operation
# YET TO BE DEFINED - COMING WITH SYSTEM CONTROL SERVICE
# Is this really going to be better?
2.2. Get printer options to populate a print dialog (activity between
doing "File→Print" and presenting the print dialog UI)
------------
Once a printer has been identified, it is necessary for the print
system to understand the capabilities that the printer device’s print
service provides. This includes what print job payload formats can be
consumed by the print service, the available options and default
choices, and so forth. It also includes other information about the
device itself, such as its location.
Options:
* SAD:
o Depend on a-priori knowledge about a particular model as a
way of listing options for the model of device identified as
the target
# Model specific print drivers fall in this bucket
* MEH:
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes Operation
# request includes no printer attributes; only operation
attributes
# reply will contain the job template attributes for all
PDLs
o Client guesses at what attributes may work or not work for a
given PDL, or uses a-priori knowledge
* BETTER:
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes Operation
# any specific attributes?
o Process results; decide on a PDL
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes Operation
# request includes the document-format attribute with value
specifying the chosen PDL
# reply will contain the job template attributes
appropriately filtered ("colored") for that particular
document-format
2.3. Check constraints between presented options
------------
Printer features and options are presented typically in a print
dialog. Some of these have states that have relationships with other
options' states, where one cannot be in a particular state if another
one is too. These are known as constraints, and they must be
calculated any time the state of a control changes state. There are
various ways that this can be done.
Options:
* BAD:
o IPP Validate-Job
# Every time a control is changed, the client sends IPP
Validate-Job with attribute values corresponding to
current state of controls
* MEH:
o IPP Validate-Job
# when "Print" button is pressed, confirms the job creation
/ submission will succeed (authentication, etc.)
# client depends on this operation to perform constraints
validation printer-side
* BETTER:
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes
# device implements job-constraits-supported
# device implements job-resolvers-supported
o <Local processing of constraints>
o IPP Validate-Job
# when "Print" button is pressed, confirms the job creation
/ submission will succeed (authentication, etc.)
# constraints validation already handled client-side
2.4. Submitting a Print Job
------------
Once the user has decided on options, the print job is generated and
ultimately made available to the printer in some fashion. There are
several different ways that this may occur.
2.4.1. Submitting a print job "by value"
This is the classical way that a print job is sent from the client to
the print service: a job is created, and the job information and job
payload content are sent by the client to the print service.
Options:
* MEH:
o IPP Print-Job
# no pre-flighting
# the printer may reject it but only after it has been
transmitted in whole or in part.
# better to check ticket and content types first.
* GOOD:
o IPP Validate-Job
# pre-flights the job by validating the job attributes and
document type
o IPP Print-Job
# creates the job and sends the payload in one operation
# however, the Job object’s URI isn’t usually known until
the job transmission is complete
# doesn’t work well with flow-controlled (low-end) printers
* BETTER:
o IPP Validate-Job
# pre-flights the job by validating the job attributes and
document type
o IPP Create-Job
# returns immediately with the job URI for monitoring and
ticket processing status
# if there is a problem then Create-Job may fail the same
as Validate-Job would, but may not, which is why we do a
Validate-Job first (so that there isn’t a zombie job
there)
o IPP Send-Document
# payload transmission is de-coupled from the creation of
the job
# multiple documents can be sent to build up a compound job
# means that the client doesn’t have to be prepared for an
early HTTP response
# allows the job URI to be learned before job payload is
sent
# MUST check to see if value of
"multiple-document-jobs-supported" is "true", to see if
it is OK to do multiple Send-Document operations to the
same Job object.
2.4.2. Submitting a print job "by reference"
This is a slightly different way that a print job is sent from the
client to the print service: a job is created and made available for
retrieval by the print service, and when the print job the job
information and job payload content are sent by the client to the
print service.
Options:
* MEH:
o IPP Print-URI
# no pre-flighting
# the printer may reject it but only after it has been
transmitted in whole or in part.
# better to check ticket and content types first.
* GOOD:
o IPP Validate-Job
# pre-flights the job by validating the job attributes and
document type
o IPP Print-URI
# creates the job and sends a URL to where the payload can
be retrieved in one operation
# print service retrieves the payload file itself
# however, the Job object’s URI isn’t usually known until
the job transmission is complete
# doesn’t work well with flow-controlled (low-end) printers
* BETTER:
o IPP Validate-Job
# pre-flights the job by validating the job attributes and
document type
o IPP Create-Job
# returns immediately with the job URI for monitoring and
ticket processing status
# if there is a problem then Create-Job will fail the same
as Validate-Job would
o IPP Send-URI
# payload URI transmission is de-coupled from the creation
of the job
# means that the client doesn’t have to be prepared for an
early HTTP response
# allows the job URI to be learned before job payload is
sent
2.5. Monitoring print job status
------------
While the print job is being processed, users may wish to know
whether it is proceeding successfully, or whether there are
conditions that they need to handle that are preventing processing
from proceeding, such as a media jam, open covers, marking agents
depleted, and so forth.
Options:
* MEH:
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes
# monitor the value of the printer-state attribute
# polling (lame)
* GOOD:
o IPP Get-Job-Attributes
# targets the specific job status
# may be more precise
# (need to see if job attributes will show printer issues
(top cover open, etc.) that block a job as well)
# polling (lame)
* BETTER:
o IPP Create-Job-Subscriptions
# asynchronous / long running queries for notifications
that don’t require polling
2.6. Canceling a print job
------------
It may be that the user wants to terminate a job before it has been
fully processed, for whatever reason. There are things that must be
done to ensure that the state of the Job object has been decisively
cleaned up by the client if the client is responsible for canceling
the job. Clients leaving broken Job objects on the Print service is
bad behavior.
There is also a dependency between the options below and how the job
was submitted. If Print-Job is used, but the document payload is not
completely transmitted, then is a Job object even created? Is this
true in all cases? Alternately, if Create-Job / Send-Document is
used, and the Cancel-Job is sent during the Send-Document operation
submission, then
Options:
* BAD:
o Client stop sending data and close the connection
# Problem: The IPP Job Object may have been created and
still exist, and be in an indeterminate state. It should
be explicitly cleaned up by the client for best
performance and correctness.
# Question: Are there any realistic or theoretical
conditions under which a Print-Job operation does NOT
create a Job object?
* MEH:
o Client stops sending chunks but doesn’t close the connection
because it is expecting an IPP operation reply.
o IPP Cancel-Job operation request for the job via a second
connection, which for some printers could result in a PDL
interpreter hang because the last chunk sent didn’t stop on a
"statement" boundary
# But if the client stops with a zero length chunk then the
IPP stack will know that transport is complete
# Need to define a "magic chunk" that operates kind of like
an in-band inline Cancel-Job operation, to tell the PDL
interpreter that no more job payload chunks?
* GOOD:
o IPP Cancel-Job
o Client stops sending chunks and closes the connection
* BETTER:
o ???
2.7. Getting printer supplies status
------------
Some administrative tasks, like checking consumables levels, are
presented to end users in some cases, such as during print job status
or in print dialogs. This is useful to end users and should be
supported.
Options:
* MEH:
o Don’t use IPP but use some proprietary protocol or
platform-specific extension to IPP
# The point is to use only IPP extensions based on open
standards (i.e. PWG standard) and this violates that core
principle
* GOOD:
o IPP Get-Printer-Attributes
# printer must implement JPS3 "printer-supply" attribute
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