WIMS> RE: Counter MIB questions

WIMS> RE: Counter MIB questions

wamwagner at comcast.net wamwagner at comcast.net
Fri Jul 7 12:34:24 EDT 2006


Ira,

Understood. That is a problem with not prototyping, although there is no guarentee that all issues will be found  when prototyping. So, pending further discoveries, perhaps we should consider an errata to the counter spec? I take it that we would add another object, with 'icMediaUsedMediaInfo' being redefined and retyped as a media qualifier and (perhaps) ''icMediaUsedMediaDescrip" being added for user infomation?

Bill Wagner

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald at sharplabs.com> 

Hi Bill,

I agree that 'icMediaUsedMediaInfo' is overloaded with two probably
incompatible uses, but it isn't the MIB that did this overloading.  This
is a bug in the PWG Candidate Standard Imaging System Counters
(PWG 5106.1) - see section 5.3 on the bottom of page 27.

This bug cannot be fixed in the MIB independently, without revision 
of the source document's element semantics.

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: wamwagner at comcast.net [mailto:wamwagner at comcast.net]
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 4:36 PM
To: McDonald, Ira; 'Stuart Rowley'
Cc: wims at pwg.org
Subject: Re: WIMS> RE: Counter MIB questions


OK. Ira, it seems that you agree with Stuart that: 
icMediaUsedMediaSizeName DisplayString and
icMediaUsedMediaInfo SnmpAdminString
both are not localized. 

The former is a PWG 5101.1 defined keyword; the latter is freeform in that it is not a public-spec defined keyword, but operationally should be one of a set of strings defined for use in a particular environment or with  a particular application.

This appears to overload icMediaUsedMediaInfo as both a qualifying descriptor for media identification and as a description for human consumption.

Since the MIB is informational only (pending prototyping), and Stuart may be doing the prototyping, I would suggest that we collect the issues discovered during this effort and define an updated version of the MIB for resubmission as a candidate standard. 

Bill Wagner

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald at sharplabs.com> 

Hi Stuart,

The ASCII keyword in '...SizeName' should NOT be localized, 
but the equivalent elements in '...MediaInfo' ARE supposed to 
be localized.

But, because '...MediaInfo' in the Abstact Counter spec (PWG 
5106.1) and Counter MIB is required for the key distinguishing 
two instances of the same size media (e.g., by color), it's highly
undesirable to change the value of '...MediaInfo' when the printer
locale changes -  lousy side effects for accounting applications.

Bill - I consider this a probable errata against the Counter MIB.

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: Stuart Rowley [mailto:Stuart.Rowley at ktd-kyocera.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 9:07 PM
To: McDonald, Ira
Cc: wims at pwg.org
Subject: RE: Counter MIB questions


Hi Ira,
 
Thanks for the quick reply. 
 
The description for icMediaUsedMediaSizeName says:
 
"The media size self-describing name for this specific media,
for use with remote network management scripts and GUIs,
specified as a Unicode string encoded in UTF-8 (RFC 3629)
in the language specified in 'icGeneralNaturalLanguage'.
 
...so would this ASCII keyword be localized...?
 
Thanks,
 
Stuart



From: McDonald, Ira [mailto:imcdonald at sharplabs.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 12:47 PM
To: Stuart Rowley; McDonald, Ira
Cc: 'wims at pwg.org'
Subject: RE: Counter MIB questions
 
Hi Stuart,
 
I copied the WIMS list, so others could see my remarks and chime in.
 
The significance of icMediaUsedMediaSizeName being DisplayString is
that it MUST be strict ASCII (it's a _keyword_ that follows the format in
PWG 5101.1, not a free form name - even a custom size name has a
format and MUST be strict ASCII).
 
icMediaUsedMediaInfo is a description that makes '...SizeName' unique for 
instances of different (but same size) media.  Because the IETF leaned
on us hard to make all future MIB descriptive strings be internationalized,
it's of type SnmpAdminString (UTF-8) and localized.
 
Now - nothing prevents you from making the "localized" media info in
Kyocera products be of the form:
 
  media-info = english-media-identifier ":" localized-description
 
So that your accounting applications use the invariant identifier and
save the localized-description (if at all) in a separate database field
that's informational.
 
Or you could cheat (I don't recommend this) and leave the value of
icGeneralNaturalLanguage empty and just support all descriptive
fields in US-English only (the default) - I _really_ don't recommend
this approach, because it's not very customer-friendly.
 
Hope this helps,
- 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: Stuart Rowley [mailto:Stuart.Rowley at ktd-kyocera.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 1:47 PM
To: McDonald, Ira
Subject: Counters MIB questions
Hi Ira,
 
I hope you had an enjoyable 4th of July weekend. 
 
I have a couple questions about the Counters spec and MIB regarding media used.
 
There are 3 objects used to describe the media size and type.
icMediaUsedMediaSizeName DisplayString,
icMediaUsedMediaInfo SnmpAdminString,
icMediaUsedMediaName SnmpAdminString
 
What is the significance of icMediaUsedMediaSizeName using DisplayString and the others using SnmpAdminString?
 
In the MIB it lists all three as being localized, but it seems only icMediaUsedMediaName should be localized. I need icMediaUsedMediaSizeName and icMediaUsedMediaInfo to be used by our accounting apps to identify the size and type for billing purposes. This would be hard to achieve using localized strings. Our apps would need to read standardized names from these two objects. Am I missing something?
 
Thanks,
 
Stuart
 
Stuart Rowley
Network Product Mgr.
Kyocera Technology Development


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