RE: Vague JetDirect Problem

["Michael A. Traffanstead" <traff () txdigital com>]

Recently we purchased an HP 4050TN with a Jet Direct card, everyone was
fat and happy for a while.  Then we took down our NT print server and
installed two new intel pro 100+ nic's.  We setup these two cards to do
adaptive load balancing with the existing pro 100+ ( very slick and
easy to setup btw ).  After that, our 4050TN experienced exactly the
same problems you are describing.  If we unplugged any two of the three
cards the problem went away.  After doing some research I discovered
that if JetDirect discovers it can communicate directly with the printer
using MAC addresses, it will ( even if you've specifically specified
TCP/IP in the settings ).  This was causing problem b/c Intel's
adaptive load balancing only receives on one of the cards.  So data was
being sent out from one of three cards and the JetDirect card in the
printer would try to communicate directly with that card... which will
not work (~2/3 of the time at least).

Hopefully this might help you identify your problem.

traff

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-firewall-wizards () lists nfr net
[mailto:owner-firewall-wizards () lists nfr net]On Behalf Of wpl1 () jps net
Sent: Saturday, September 11, 1999 11:04 AM
To: firewall-wizards () nfr net
Subject: Vague JetDirect Problem


The subject reads "vague" because I'm not sure this is really a firewall
issue--but it could be.  We have installed a single JetDirect device in our
building.  The network sees the device and workstations may be configured to
recognize it.  Our building, in which a couple dozen workstations connect to
one of two daisy-chained hubs, connects to via fiber to the MDF in another
building where several dozen workstations are more efficiently connecting to
switches.  The JetDirect is connected to one of those two chained hubs in
our building.

The firewall is a Cisco PIX sitting off of one of the aforementioned
switches at the remote building.  There are three routers in the picture,
all located in the remote building.  One routes data from our building
across a WAN to yet another site; one routes across still another WAN; the
third is outside the firewall pointing to our ISP.

The JetDirect's configured gateway is the internal IP of the firewall.

Now, folks at the remote building (site of the MDF, et al.) can print to our
device.  We can print from our building to devices at the remote building.
But we can't print to our device.  (The printer never produces the job which
remains as a pending job according to the printer's status.)  The network
print server is a host connected to the switches mentioned above.  Is the
gateway configuration--which is the same for all successfully operating
JetDirects on the network--feeding the data by default to the PIX?  Is the
PIX possibly trashing the data?

The network is NT; workstations run 98.

Any assistance will be appreciated.  A simple reply of "Huh?" will be
understood, as well.  Apologies in advance for my not having sufficient
technical prowess to clearly describe this problem.

Dean C. Rowan
Whittier Public Library