functionality.

2. TERMINOLOGY

   Internet Printing for the purposes of this document is the
   application of Internet tools, programs, servers and networks to
   allow end-users to print to a remote printer using, after initial
   setup or configuration, the same methods, operations and paradigms as
   would be used for a locally attached or a local area network attached
   printer.  This could include the use of HTTP servers and browsers and
   other applications for providing static, dynamic and interactive
   printer locating services, user installation, selection,
   configuration, print job submission, printer capability inquiry and
   status inquiry of remote printers and jobs.

   For the purposes of this document, a WEB Browser is software
   available from a number of sources including but not limited to the
   following:  Microsoft Internet Explorer, NCSA Mosaic, Netscape
   Navigator, Sun Hot Java!.  The major task of these products is to use
   the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) to retrieve, interpret and
   display Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).  These products are often a
   part of a complete Internet Printing system because they are often




 
RFC 2567             Internet Printing Design Goals           April 1999


   used as a means of obtaining the status of or more information about
   the printing system; however, they may not be present in all
   implementations.

   Throughout this document, 'printer' shall be interpreted to include
   any device which is capable of marking on a piece of media using any
   available technology.  These design goals do not include support for
   multi-tiered printing solutions involving servers (single or
   multiple) logically in front of the actual printing device yet all
   such configurations shall be supported but shall appear to the end-
   user as only a single device.

   Throughout this document 'driver' refers to the code installed in
   some client operating system to generate the print data stream for
   the intended printer. Some computing environments may not include a
   separate printer driver.  Rather, the generation of the proper print
   data stream is accomplished in an application on that computer. How
   such a computer environment or application is updated to support a
   new printer now made available using IPP is outside the scope of IPP.
   The actual details for installing a printer driver are operating
   system dependent and are also outside the scope of IPP. See also
   section 4.1 (SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS) for security implications of
   driver download and installation.

   The IPP protocol will support the following physical configurations:

   - An IPP client talking to an IPP Printer object imbedded in a
     single, physical output device.
   - An IPP Client talking to a server containing one or more IPP
     Printer objects. Each Printer object is associated with exactly one
     physical output device supported by the server. The protocol
     between the server and the output devices is undefined.
   - An IPP Client talking to an IPP Printer object in a server. The
     Printer object is associated with one or more physical output
     devices, but the client only sees the Printer object, which is an
     abstraction and represents all of the associated physical output
     devices. The protocol between the server and the physical output
     devices is undefined.

   Throughout this document, certain design goals will be identified as
   not being a part of version 1.0 (or V1.0) of the protocol or as being
   satisfied by means outside of IPP.  IPP is assumed to be one part, an
   enabler, of a complete Internet Printing solution.  For example
   printer instance creation is not performed by but is enabled by the
   protocol.  Globally, none of the operator or administrators wants and
   needs are included in the design goals for version 1.0.  Some of the
   end-user wants and needs may also be excluded from version 1.0 and
   will be so noted in the description of them.  Subsequent versions of




 
RFC 2567             Internet Printing Design Goals           April 1999


   the protocol (e.g. V2.0) may include support for these initially
   excluded wants and needs.

3. DESIGN GOALS

   The next three sections identify the design goals for an Internet
   printing protocol from three roles assumed by humans: end-user,
   operator, and administrator.  The goals defined here are only those
   that need to be addressed by an Internet printing protocol.  Other
   wants and needs, such as that the operator needs physical access to
   the printer (e.g. to be able to load paper or clear jams) are not
   covered by this document.  Section 5 contains scenarios which provide
   more detailed examples of the entire process including discovery,
   status, printing and end-of-job reporting.