The Storage Ref and Device Ref tables in the Printer MIB are simple
'dependency lists' (ie, storage and devices that the Printer object
depends on, as opposed to others on the host system that are of no
interest). They are of dubious value anyway - probably overlap with
the System Application MIB and Network Services Monitoring MIB in a
non-general way.
That said, adding 'prt-tab-xxx' definitions for these two tables seems
straightforward and suitable. What's the problem with doing so?
Separately, answers to some of Paul Moore's questions. For example, if
six printer devices are managed/presented by a server system, the only
way to find 'sysDescr' for each of those network printers is to directly
read 'sysDescr' in the SNMP agent of EACH of those printers. Supporting
Printer MIB instances indexed by HR MIB (printer) device rows is NOT the
same as supporting a full SNMP proxy for each remote printer. To find
the remote network printers (for direct SNMP contact), a client could
read 'prtGeneralPrinterName' for each Printer MIB instance (device) and
then do a DNS or LDAP lookup for the network address of each remote
printer (note that 'prtGeneralPrinterName' was NOT defined in RFC 1759,
but was subsequently added in the 'revised' Printer MIB). The HR MIB
Storage and Device tables on the server system do NOT have information
about storage and devices used on the remote network printers, but just
those used by the Printer MIB proxy application on the server system.
Cheers,
- Ira McDonald (High North, outside consultant at Xerox)
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 23:44:10 -0700
>To: imcdonal@eso.mc.xerox.com (Ira Mcdonald)
>From: Tom Hastings <hastings@cp10.es.xerox.com>
>Subject: RE: IPP> Comments on MIB access document
>
>Ira,
>
>I need some help here. I don't really understand the storage ref table
>and the device ref table in the Printer MIB. Currently, we haven't
>defined 'prt-tab-xxx' values for these two tables. Should we?
>
>Or since you have to use the 'mib-xxx' anyway to access storage or
>device tables in the hr MIB, you may as well go there directly first,
>rather than to one of the Printer MIBs?
>
>Thanks,
>Tom
>
>>From: Paul Moore <paulmo@microsoft.com>
>>To: "'Tom Hastings'" <hastings@cp10.es.xerox.com>
>>Cc: "'ipp@pwg.org'" <ipp@pwg.org>
>>Subject: RE: IPP> Comments on MIB access document
>>Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 12:58:24 PDT
>>X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2232.9)
>>
>>I must be being really stupid here. Cos I still dont undertsand
>>
>>Two Example:
>>
>>I have an IPP printer that fans out to six devices. Devices-supported
>>returns six names.
>>
>>How do I read system.sysdescr of the second device?
>>
>>How do I read the hrDevice table of the fifth device (to find how much RAM
>>it has)?
>>