Xerox Device Agent (XDA) Cannot Communicate to the Target Printer

The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is the most widely-used-network-management tool for communication between network management systems and the networked printers.

XDA utilizes SNMP during discovery operations to retrieve detailed data from output devices detected on the network. After discovery, SNMP is used to monitor printers for faults, changes in status, configuration changes, and to support printer troubleshooting.

XDA supports SNMP version 1 and version 2 protocols. The following application properties identify the impact of XDA on printer security:

• it does not modify the settings on the printer; it only reads them.

• it does not register for SNMP traps.

• it does allow the printer to be reset (this requires that devices support printer reset via SNMP).

SNMP v1-v2 Security

In its current form, SNMP's security is limited to three methods of access: read-only, write-only, and read-write.

Access from XDA to the devices is granted by the use of community name strings. Although usually referred to as the password, for SNMP operations, the community name provides a very simple level of authentication for all PDU operations. Theoretically, you can assign community names to every subnet on a network. Every printer on a local subnet will have the same community name. You can assign printers on a different subnet to a different community name.

By default, XDA uses the community name string of public, which is the printer manufacturer’s default setting. You can elect to change this setting on the printers and you have the ability to change the community name string that XDA uses to match the settings for the configured printers.

NOTE: XDA does not support SNMP v3 only configured devices. In order to communicate with printers that have SNMP v3 enabled, the printers must also have SNMP v2 enabled for XDA to communicate with them.

If the problem persists, contact Support for additional assistance.