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To harden SNMP security one must deviate from the default get community string of "public". Once that is done, as well as disabling any remaining get community strings of "public" such as HP units, there are two options to maintain printing functionality:

  1. Uncheck the SNMP Status Enabled checkbox for the affected printer on the client machine.
  2. Update the Community name for the affected printer on the client machine.

What impact is of disabling the "SNMP Status Enabled" setting? enter image description here

Community
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Sn3akyP3t3
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    SNMP is a "management" protocol and has nothing to do with print functionality. The impact to disabling it is that you won't have SNMP manageability of the printer. – joeqwerty Jun 20 '13 at 22:50
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    Interesting that this is flagged as not a real question. I followed up searching more and found questions like this http://serverfault.com/questions/163156/enabling-snmp-on-windows-server-2003-sp2-shows-printer-as-offline?rq=1 where enabling SNMP with a changed community string cripples printing capabilities because it flags the printer as "offline" when really it is not. – Sn3akyP3t3 Jun 21 '13 at 16:23

2 Answers2

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The impact would be mainly driver- and model-dependent. You will lose functionality like the ability to automatically retrieve the printer's installed options or meaningful error messages upon print job failures or holds. Also, some printer drivers come with client-side applications reporting ink/toner status - this would typically be unavailable as well if SNMP is disabled for the print queue.

Also, as joequerty pointed out, the printing functionality itself is using a different protocol and would be unaffected.

the-wabbit
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    We experienced an issue with HP LaserJet M605 where disabling SNMP v1/v2 would cause a 12-second delay per print job when using the native M605 driver. Switching to the HP Universal Print driver eliminated this delay. A packet trace showed attempted SNMP queries from the native driver. We had already turned off SNMP polling on the port settings of the print server, but the driver was doing it anyway. – GuitarPicker Aug 09 '18 at 15:42
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Depending on the printer, SNMP might be needed to report statistics like how much toner is left to the driver. Generally though, if you don't use SNMP to manage the printer you should turn it off.

Rod MacPherson
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