Subject: PMP> RE: question about the printer mib

From: "McDonald, Ira" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 13:09:08 -0800

Hi Juergen,

The first counter, 'prtMarkerLifeCount', is set to zero at the 
time of manufacture of the printer.  Every printer I've seen
actually does keep this counter straight, because it's the
primary basis of preventive maintenance (and also billing for
leased printers).

However, on page 26 of Printer MIB v2 in section 2.3, there
is the following caution:

  "4. It is an implementation-specific matter as to whether or not MIB
   object values are persistent across power cycles or cold starts.  It
   is particularly important that the values of the prtMarkerLifeCount
   object persist throughout the lifetime of the printer.  Therefore, if
   the value of any MIB object persists across power cycles, then the
   prtMarkerLifeCount object must also persist."

So there is no absolute guarantee that 'prtMarkerLifeCount' is
always accurate for the life of the printer.

The second counter, 'prtMarkerPowerOnCount', is set to zero
every time that the printer is powered on.  Again, this is
correctly maintained in every printer I've seen.

Cheers,
- Ira McDonald (co-editor of Printer MIB v2)

PS - I copied the Printer MIB mailing list on this reply, in case
someone else wants to comment.

-----Original Message-----
From: Juergen Schoenwaelder [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 2:03 AM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; Bert Wijnen
Subject: question about the printer mib

While writing code for the Printer-MIB, I started to wonder what the
intention of prtMarkerLifeCount and prtMarkerPowerOnCount is:

prtMarkerLifeCount OBJECT-TYPE
    SYNTAX     Counter32
    MAX-ACCESS read-only
    STATUS     current
    DESCRIPTION
        "The count of the number of units of measure counted during
        the life of printer using units of measure as specified by
        CounterUnit."
    ::= { prtMarkerEntry 4 }

prtMarkerPowerOnCount OBJECT-TYPE
    SYNTAX     Counter32
    MAX-ACCESS read-only
    STATUS     current
    DESCRIPTION
        "The count of the number of units of measure counted since the
        equipment was most recently powered on using units of measure as
        specified by CounterUnit."
    ::= { prtMarkerEntry 5 }

Do you assume that these Counters start at zero at the printer's birth
event or power on event? Is the idea that management applications can
rely on this to be true?

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder      University of Osnabrueck
<[email-masked]>       Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science
Phone: +49 541 969 2483    Albrechtstr. 28, 49069 Osnabrueck, Germany
Fax:   +49 541 969 2770    <http://www.informatik.uni-osnabrueck.de/>