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HP JetAdmin 2.33 may cause ARP Storm on Network

Article ID: 164609

Article Last Modified on 8/9/2007


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This article was previously published under Q164609
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SUMMARY

When you diagnose network traffic using a network analyzer, a large series of address resolution protocols (ARPs) in sequential order may be detected. This problem can cause network access and traffic to and from all hosts to become temporarily disrupted. One of the possible causes of this behavior is the result of Hewlett Packard's JetAdmin JetDirect discovery tool, which is silently installed when a Hewlett Packard published driver is installed in Windows from a disk. One of Hewlett Packard's JetAdmin 2.33 methods to discover all JetDirect devices (printers) running TCP/IP requires that a ping be sent to every address in the subnet. Although this may provide a very thorough list of devices, it can also generate a huge amount of network traffic. Take, for example, a Class A network address. If JetAdmin were to run, approximately 7 million packets, in succession, will be transmitted upon startup of this utility.

WORKAROUND

There are two possible resolutions to this issue: The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.


NOTE: JetDirect is no longer supported by HP. SDI (Simple Device Installation) is now used to install network printers. For more information on this, see:

Additional query words: crash hang storm

Keywords: kb3rdparty kbinterop kbnetwork kbusage KB164609