Way back in the first draft (1997) of the new Printer MIB following RFC
1759, all objects with a MAX-ACCESS of read-write were given a MIN-ACCESS of
read-only. Previously, only two objects had a MIN-ACCESS clause, but in the
latest draft of Printer MIB v2 there are 51 such objects. There is a short
note about this change in the document "changes_to_rfc_1759.pdf".
In a recent discussion with my colleagues, we wondered why these MIN-ACCESS
clauses were added. Of course, we can implement read-write objects if we
want to, because that's what the MAX-ACCESS clauses state. But we don't
understand why the MIN-ACCESS clauses were added. We see cases where
read-write access is helpful, such as during a remote printer installation.
Agent implementations that are compliant with RFC 1759 have the objects
implemented as read-write, since there are no MIN-ACCESS clauses in 1759
that allow read-only. New agent implementations of the v2 MIB would be
compliant with read-only access, but might break old management or other
apps that expect to be able to set all those values.
Can anyone think of a good defense for the new MIN-ACCESS clauses?
Thanks,
Gary Gocek, Xerox Corp.
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