snmp address ranges

[Stephen Isard]

Thanks for your reply.

> Your assumption is incorrect.  CUPS broadcasts the initial SNMP
> query using the broadcast address(es) for the interface(s) you specify
> in snmp.conf.  We don't poll all addresses in a subnet manually.

Right.  I think that's my problem.  The printers I'd like to discover will only be reached by broadcasting to the range you get by combining the broadcast address (abc.def.9.255) with the netmask (255.255.254.0).
The 254 will make that range include addresses abc.def.8.xxx, which is where the printers are, and in fact where my own machine is.

> What would be useful to know is:
>
> 1. What version of CUPS?
>
> 2. What operating system/Linux distribution?

The distribution is Scientific Linux 5, which is basically Centos 5 with minor adjustments.  The CUPS package that comes with it is cups-1.2.4-11.18.el5_2.1.x86_64.

> 3. How is your network organized?

I'm not sure how to answer this one.  As I said, the machines have addresses of the form abc.def.8.xxx and abc.def.9.xxx (where abc.def is NOT 192.168, i.e., machines have ip addresses directly on the internet).  The addresses, broadcast addresses and netmasks are assigned by dhcp.  The route command on my machine reports a default route via a gateway router with address abc.def.8.1.

I don't have any control over the network, but I have root privileges on my own machine.  If there are questions that can be answered by running commands, I'd be glad to do that.