How does it work and is it safe?
To have up-to-date information from your printers in your customer area at printer4you.com, our client (a small piece of software) must be installed on your network so that it can reach the printers within the network.
Our client periodically polls the printers you have specified, according to the level of consumables, meter readings, and error messages, and stores this information locally with you. This information is then sent to printer4you twice a day using an encrypted file over a secure Internet connection (https). This transfer is always from the client (from you) to the server (to us), never vice versa! So you can be sure that no one else gets your printers data and neither we nor anyone else has access to your network.
In detail:
The client software can be installed on a 32-bit or 64-bit Windows-based PC (Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012, Server 2012 R2)
There are no special requirements for the hardware.
The software can also be installed in virtual environments with the mentioned operating systems.
For client software installation instructions, here (PDF Download - 2.2 MB).
What is the client doing on your network?
The client polls the printing systems on your network every hour for information such as meter readings, toner levels, error status, etc., and provides this information to printer4you.com for further analysis.
The software installs an MS Access compatible database. However, using larger volumes of Microsoft SQL Server Express or Microsoft SQL Server is recommended.
Data is transferred twice a day from the client to printer4you.com.
Requirements for Operation
From the PC or the virtual environment on which the client software has been installed, network access via SNMP protocol to the printing systems to be monitored must be possible. Furthermore, there must be the possibility to build a TCP / IP based XML-RPC connection to printer4you.com.
The corresponding ports in local firewalls can be opened for this:
For SNMP print system queries: Port 161 (UDP)
For TCP / IP XML-RPC communication to printer4you.com: Port 52004 (TCP)
For local communication between the client and the associated web-based configuration interface: Port 52005 (TCP)
- The transmitted data packets are transmitted in encrypted form.
- You can view and operate the client via a user interface, for which you have an administrative access
- You can always change settings
- You can define the password for the encryption yourself (after consultation)
- You can see the files the client sends to our server
- You can interrupt or stop communication at any time
Another variant:
You can also send the encrypted data to printer4you via email. The transfer takes place in this case through your mail server. Please contact us if you prefer this option.
Free and without obligation