Subject: PMP> Long-standing HR MIB recommendations from Printer MIB

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 21:37:27 -0700

Regarding the paragraph which I have been asked to remove from the Printer
MIB...

"Although the above mapping is workable, it would be improved with
a few additions to hrDeviceStatus and hrPrinterStatus in the Host
Resources MIB. In particular, it would be appropriate to add a
"standby" enumeration to hrDeviceStatus.  Similarly, it would be
useful to add the following states to hrPrinterStatus: "offline"
to indicate that reason for the printer being down (instead of
having to use "other") which allows both "warning" and "offline"
to indicate going offline and "down" and "offline" to indicate
offline and "notApplicable" to cover cases, such as "standby",
where the device state completely describes the state of the
device. The suggestions and additions discussed above would
require re-convening of the Host Resources MIB working group and
a new draft issued prior to actual implementation of these
suggestions and/or additions."

Standby is listed as an "interesting state" (Printer MIB 2.2.13.2 -
Overall Printer Status). Yet, to describe it we specify DEVICE STATUS
(Running) with PRINTER STATUS (Other). That's not a very explicit way to
call attention to an interesting state. Thus, my suggestion to add a
simple enumeration - DEVICE STATUS (Standby).

The 2nd suggestion to add PRINTER STATUS (Offline) stemmed largely from an
error in the original MIB that "pegged" hrPrinterDetectedErrorState
(Offline) with a mandatory DEVICE STATUS (Down). So, it was fundamentally
impossible to achieve an "offline warning". The alleviation of mandatory
associations between hrPrinterDetectedErrorState and hrDeviceStatus is
probably enough to correct this problem (although I was never able to get
the point across very well that we should have just eliminated the whole
association definition altogether rather than specify it the way we did
which is to say, in every case, it's OK to associate either DOWN or
WARNING. Trouble is... if I'm ever successful in adding STANDBY, we can't
"officially" associate it very well with any of the "bits".

Harry Lewis
IBM Printing Systems