Printer Network Interface

The printer has various interfacing points where a man or machine might integrate into. To safeguard and standardize these connections we define a set of Interface Standards.

The Interface Standards are the defacto implementation on the printer unless you have profound and critical reasons to deviate from them.

In this document we will elaborate the Network Interface standard.

For integrating a printer into your network we define the following two interface:

Topology Interface Standard (network hardware)
Network Protocol Interface Standard (network software)

In this document we will elaborate on them and define what must be followed and what can be altered.

Topology Interface

The topology describes how the physical network layout is setup. In other words, what network (cabling) can be attached to where and what hardware requirements are set.

The (network) topology is setup as follows:

Hardware interface

Printer PC - Gen3

The provided DIGI Printer has a built in PC that provides basic printer functionality.

The PC is of the type OnLogic HX511. The operating system is Windows 11 Professional.

LAN

This PC interacts with various internal print devices in its local network.

This local network is in the IPv4 subnet:

255.255.0.0

For IPv4 Address range:

192.168.X.X

Each internal print device is connected to a central switch and routed to the Printer PC at port 'P1'. We call this printer machine network the internal network or LAN.

The topology, addressing, subnetting and protocols running in this local network are fixed and part of the printer core design and functionality.

[!IMPORTANT] No changes to this network are allowed in order to preserve the core functionality!

[!IMPORTANT] No external network integrations into this network shall be allowed unless specifically requested, for example the machine-to-machine interface.

WAN

A second network port on the Printer PC named 'P2' will allow for external access and integration. We call this network the external network or WAN.

This network (adapter) will be set to DHCP as default. Its up to you, as the customer, to decide what IP address and subnet should be allocated to this network (either IPv4 or IPv6 is possible).

The corresponding MAC address of this WAN port, can be supplied beforehand but no sooner than the FAT (Factory-Acceptance-Test) stage. If you, the customer, so wishes you can set the network (adapter) to manual assignment, and provide their own static IP address.

The WAN port will be a RJ45 1Gigabit interface. To interface with this port, its recommended to use at least a Cat5e SF/UTP cable to ensure proper and maximum speed connectivity.

Print Manager PC/Server

In the WAN network you might attach a PC/Server to host the DIGI Print Manager software on.

For hardware specifications for running the Print Manager software suite, please refer to the Print Manager System Document.

The network protocol is also cited in that document, but we will repeat it in the following chapter for clarity sake.

[!IMPORTANT] You need to provide the hardware in order to host and run the Print Manager software. Maintenance and upkeep of the hardware and software falls under your responsibility.

Network Protocol

The network will carry various traffic from and to the printer to ensure full (remote) functionality.

Printer API - Gen3

The DIGI printer exposes its main functionality through an open API interface.

Just like the Print Manager, this is an API which exposes HTTP/HTTPS gRPC and JSON REST endpoints.

Therefor allow communication on this API, in the your network, you must allow TPC traffic to the printer on the port 6001 (which is the default, but can be altered).

Print Manager API

The DIGI Print Manager is a software suite to provide an extended set of print automated functions.

This software suite comes with two main applications:

Print Manager Server: a headless print processing app
Print Manager Client: a web based UI to interact with the Server

The Print Manager Server also exposes and API with HTTP/HTTPS gRPC and JSON REST endpoints.

Therefor allow communication on this API, in the your network, you must allow TPC traffic to the Server on the port 5001 (which is the default, but can be altered).

To allow opening of the Client web app, in your browser, you need to allow TCP traffic to reach the Client app host on port 7001 (which is the default, but can be altered).

The Client then interacts with the Server on its port 5001.

MESToPrintManagerProtocol

The Print Manager will need to connect to the Printer by using the Printers API.

This requires that the Print Manager application can reach the Printer, via TCP (gRCP) traffic on port 6001.

The Print Manager (Server) also does some basic network diagnostics, so allowing ICMPv4 and ICMPv6 traffic must also be allowed from the Print Manager host to the Printer host PC.

PrintManagerToPrinterProtocol

Remote support

For providing remote assistance we require a way to view and/or take over the PC and/or its applications.

The default option is to run a TeamViewer client on the target PC(s). This will allow us to initiate a 'remote desktop connection' and be able to provide the required assistance.

To allow a TeamViewer connection in the customers network the following is required:

Client initiated TCP connection must be allowed: firewalls should allow outbound TCP traffic on port 5938
TeamViewer DNS: for firewall IP/domain whitelisting you should also allow "*.teamviewer.com" to enable TeamViewer DNS server to be called

TeamViewer

Internal components of the printer can then be reached via a 'NAT bridge'. This is a (Windows) software setting that bridges 'P1' & 'P2' to allow certain debugging traffic to pass through.

To achieve this, we will configured the NAT-bridge on the Printer PC when we provide remote assistance.

The (TeamViewer) VPN, will allow us to proxy a remote debugging probe to the target hardware.