PMP> Comments on Printer Port Monitor MIB 1.0 working draft d ated March 21, 2005

PMP> Comments on Printer Port Monitor MIB 1.0 working draft d ated March 21, 2005

McDonald, Ira imcdonald at sharplabs.com
Sun Mar 27 11:30:20 EST 2005


Hi Dennis,

OK - I probably picked an unwise example.

If one software channel (LPR) is down, because the thread
crashed (or the operator took down the LPR service), then
EVERY software channel is going to show as down, on your
network printer (remember MS does NOT read Printer MIB).

You're conflating all hardware status with the software
status of channels/interpreters.

But you're welcome to decide this is 'normal' behavior.

Cheers,
- Ira

Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI  49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald at sharplabs.com 
-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Carney [mailto:dcarney at us.ibm.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2005 4:37 PM
To: McDonald, Ira; pmp at pwg.org
Subject: RE: PMP> Comments on Printer Port Monitor MIB 1.0 working draft d
ated March 21, 2005


Hi Ira,

Ira wrote:
>If a vendor implements a single 'hrDeviceIndex' value for all ports (i.e.,
channels) 
>on the "same" printer, then if ANY port is 'down' in 'hrDeviceStatus' they
will ALL 
>be shown 'down' in the MS tools. That's not acceptable behaviour.

To me, that *does* seem like acceptable behavior (or if you'd prefer,
"behaviour"--is that your proximity to Canada showing? :-).

If I am a single network printer advertising both an LPR port and a RAW
port, if my one input tray is out of paper, then *both* ports *should* be in
an "out of paper" state in the host resources MIB.

If instead I want to differentiate between the two (I really can't think of
many good reasons to do this on a network printer), I can do this using two
different indices into the hr MIB. But I would have guessed that 99% of
network printers would simply have all advertised ports (correctly, IMHO)
point to the same hr MIB entry.

Dennis Carney
IBM Printing Systems
"McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald at sharplabs.com>


"McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald at sharplabs.com> 
03/26/2005 09:12 AM

To
Dennis Carney/Boulder/IBM at IBMUS, pmp at pwg.org


cc
"Adams, Charles A" <charles.a.adams at office.xerox.com>, "'Bergman, Ron'"
<Ron.Bergman at rpsa.ricoh.com>, mfenelon at windows.microsoft.com


Subject
RE: PMP> Comments on Printer Port Monitor MIB 1.0 working draft d ated March
21, 2005



Hi Dennis,

The Introduction and Background were recently added, for boilerplate
reasons.
They are not authoritative and in fact have not been reviewed.

Microsoft is NOT using the Printer MIB for status at all in Longhorn (per
Mike
Fenelon). The 'hrDeviceTable' and 'hrPrinterTable' in the Host Resources MIB

are the only status that will be displayed by Longhorn for printer ports.

If a vendor implements a single 'hrDeviceIndex' value for all ports (i.e.,
channels) 
on the "same" printer, then if ANY port is 'down' in 'hrDeviceStatus' they
will ALL 
be shown 'down' in the MS tools. That's not acceptable behaviour.

Cheers,
- Ira

Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221 Grand Marais, MI 49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald at sharplabs.com 
-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Carney [mailto:dcarney at us.ibm.com]
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 2:43 PM
To: pmp at pwg.org
Cc: Adams, Charles A; McDonald, Ira; 'Bergman, Ron';
mfenelon at windows.microsoft.com
Subject: RE: PMP> Comments on Printer Port Monitor MIB 1.0 working draft d
ated March 21, 2005

Ira, My reading of the "Introduction" and the "Background" of the document
seems to make it clear that the main MS model *IS* an embedded printer.

Mike Fenelon, is it really true that your port monitor makes it such that
each port *has to* have a different ppmPortHrDeviceIndex? If a network
printer implemented this MIB and advertised both an LPR and a RAW port,
would you really have a problem if both ports had a ppmPortHrDeviceIndex of
1?

Dennis
"McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald at sharplabs.com>

"McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald at sharplabs.com> 
Sent by: pmp-owner at pwg.org 
03/25/2005 09:14 AMTo
"'Bergman, Ron'" <Ron.Bergman at rpsa.ricoh.com>, "McDonald, Ira"
<imcdonald at sharplabs.com>, "Adams, Charles A"
<charles.a.adams at office.xerox.com>, pmp at pwg.org
cc
Subject
RE: PMP> Comments on Printer Port Monitor MIB 1.0 working draft d ated March
21, 2005



Hi Ron,

Going all the way back to the first Microsoft draft and ever since,
it's clear that the MS "port" entry has to have a separate device
index for each port, because the 'hr...' status objects have to be
separate for EACH port.  

Remember the main MS model is NOT an embedded printer.  It's either 
an external network adaptor or a spooler.  In both of these cases, 
only ONE protocol is being exposed fore each "port".

This isn't a new restriction.

In the case of an external network adaptor, each "port" is literally
a different direct-connect printer.

Cheers,
- Ira

Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI  49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald at sharplabs.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Bergman, Ron [mailto:Ron.Bergman at rpsa.ricoh.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 3:03 PM
To: McDonald, Ira; Adams, Charles A; pmp at pwg.org
Subject: RE: PMP> Comments on Printer Port Monitor MIB 1.0 working draft
dated March 21, 2005


Ira,

Regarding your comment:

2. ppmPortHrDeviceIndex - This seems to imply an hrDeviceTable entry is
needed for each port on the system. Is this the expected behavior? 
Or is this just the hrDeviceIndex of the printer? 
Or is the the hrDeviceIndex for the network card?

<ira>  For the Microsoft tool (TCPMon), EACH port (channel) has to
have a separate 'hrDeviceIndex' - this is different than typical
Printer MIB implementations, but it's a Microsoft tool limitation.
Note that Microsoft TCPMon _only_ supports LPR and Raw ports (no
other protocol is supported or contemplated according to co-editor
Mike Fenelon from the Microsoft Longhorn printing team), so this
only means two 'hrDeviceIndex' values at most (for each printer).
</ira>

I do not recall ever hearing this.  It certainly is not clear from
the MIB text (see below) that this is the case.  If this is true
then it is not really hrDeviceIndex that is indicated but is just
ppmPortIndex.

Also, for the printers I work with there will be a minimum of 10
ports reported.  If IPP is enable, there will be a minimum of 15.
The maximum number will be 192.

Ron

>From the MIB:
ppmPortHrDeviceIndex OBJECT-TYPE
  SYNTAX      Integer32 (0..2147483647)
  MAX-ACCESS  read-only
  STATUS      current
  DESCRIPTION
"The value of 'hrDeviceIndex' in the IETF Host Resources MIB 
(RFC 1514/2790), to be used for status queries for this port if 
the value of 'ppmPortSnmpStatusQueryEnabled' is 'true'.

If this object is zero, then monitoring applications MUST NOT 
attempt status queries for this port in the IETF Host Resources 
MIB (RFC 1514/2790) and/or IETF Printer MIB (RFC 1759/3805)."
  REFERENCE
"hrDeviceStatus, hrPrinterStatus, hrPrinterDetectedErrorState i
n IETF Host Resources MIB (RFC 1514/2790).
prtChannelStatus in IETF Printer MIB (RFC 1759/3805)."
  DEFVAL      { 0 }                   -- no host device index
  ::= { ppmPortEntry 7 }



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