Monitoring Sharp Photocopiers Paper Tray with SNMP (PRTG)

There are lots of great reasons to replace personal printers with centralised photocopiers but one of the overlooked ones can be the greater ability to monitor these copiers using SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol).

This article looks at keeping track of the status of the paper trays (how full they are!) using PRTG (http://www.paessler.com/prtg) on Sharp photocopiers.

To get rolling you will need-

• PRTG (or some other item of software that can talk to SNMP)
• Some way of querying the SNMP OIDs on the copiers (for this article I used the free version of MIB Browser – http://ireasoning.com/mibbrowser.shtml)
• A little bit of ingenuity

If just by chance you are using the Sharp MX-2640N copiers then you can save time by using the following OIDs-

Paper Tray 1 Status .1.3.6.1.2.1.43.8.2.1.10.1.2
Paper Tray 2 Status .1.3.6.1.2.1.43.8.2.1.10.1.3
Paper Tray 3 Status .1.3.6.1.2.1.43.8.2.1.10.1.4
Paper Tray 4 (A3) Status .1.3.6.1.2.1.43.8.2.1.10.1.5

So to get this up and running follow the screen shot sequence below.