I think Matt King pretty much said it all when he suggested that a
"configuration change" involves a change in any "attribute" in the
MIB.
I forget right offhand whether Matt proposed a definition for an
"attribute" in his message; however, one could argue that the
Printer MIB (and possibly most other MIBs) have essentially three
broad classes of variables:
attributes Descriptive kinds of things
counters Well, er, counter-like things ;-)
status Specific state indicators, etc
When you look at the above list, the last two can be broadly
characterized as being dynamic and, for all intents and purposes,
not settable by a "manager". (I don't wish to split hairs here,
particularly when I have so few... ;-)
Of course it would be best to have an absolutely all-encompassing
list of MIB objects that fall under the realm of "candidate for
a config change", but perhaps we can all agree that:
"If the MIB object is not a counter nor a status object,
then it must be an attribute, and as such, any change to
an associated variable value constitutes a change in the
configuration."
Is this a base philosophy to which we can all agree?
...jay
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----- Begin Included Message -----
From: Harry Lewis <harryl@us.ibm.com>
To: <pmp@pwg.org>
Subject: PMP> What constitutes a config change
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 1997 19:49:48 -0400
Classification:
Prologue:
Epilogue: Harry Lewis - IBM Printing Systems
We had some trouble with config change counter at Stardust and I want to get it
right. I don't think we really tested config change thoroughly and I want to
see if we have consensus on what constitutes a config change. The MIB says
things that change the printer's capabilities and excludes things like the
level of supplies or temporary bin removal to replenish supplies. Great. I
would add to these exclusions (not asking for a MIB update, just consensus)
changes in localization, since these do not really effect the printer
capabilities.
Here's my list of what should result in a config counter bump were they to
change:
Paper (Input) Size
Output Size
Input Capacity
Output Capacity
Total Number of Input Trays
Total Number of Output Bins
Defaults (Input, Output, Marker, Media Path)
Media Path Size (only likely on highly sophisticated printers)
Total Number Of Interpreters
Total Number of Channels (probably fixed in most cases)
Total Number of Interfaces (probably ignored by most of today's implementations)
Output features supported (optional)
Here's some I'm not sure about:
Overall Storage Capacity (not storage used)
Change in FLASH size installed
Tray linking
Media Name
I'd like to hear what others think. I don't know if we should necessarily go
any farther with documenting this, I guess it depends on how much controversy
(if any) there is over this list.
----- End Included Message -----