How do I monitor the toner level of a printer or MFD device?

Article ID: 430
Category: Network Monitoring
Applies to: 3.0 and newer
Updated: 2022-10-07

Prerequisites
The printer or MFD device must support SNMP-get, sometimes referred to as SNMP polling and must be able to accept incoming requests on UDP port 161. If your printer or copier does not meet this criteria then you won't be able to monitor it.

1) Log onto the admin interface of your printer or copier and enable SNMP, and configure a read-only SNMP community name and/or create a SNMP v3 user.

2) In the EventSentry console, go to Tools > Authentication Manager, and add a new SNMP entry. You can skip this step if you've already added this particular SNMP community name to Authentication Manager earlier for another device.

3) On the left side of the console go to Groups > Network Devices (or you can create a new group). Right-click the group and choose Add Host. You can choose a nickname such as "Accounting Printer" or "Admin Copier" for the first field and specify the printer or copier's IP address in the second field.

4) Right-click the printer or copier you added in step 3 and choose Set Authentication. Select the Authentication entry that you created in step 2 and click OK.

5) Select the printer or copier and then use the toolbar to click Check Status and Go. You should get a status reply from the device and the SNMP column of the result should show a version number, or something other than "No".

6) Use the toolbar to click Packages > Download. Clear out all of the check boxes except for the printer or copier packages that you want from the System Health section and then click Import Now at the bottom. In this example we'll download the HP Printers package.

7) On the left side, go to Packages > System Health > HP Printers (or the name of the printer/copier package you downloaded) and then right-click the package and choose Assign, and then open the Network Devices group and turn on the checkboxes for the matching devices of that type.

8) Save your EventSentry settings and wait for the data to be recorded. You'll be able to see it in the web reports under Features > Performance > Current. (Note: if you're using an older version of EventSentry then you will open Health > Performance > Status.) You can either click the device name in the "Computers" section or you can use the search bar, for example:
computer:"Accounting Printer"

The "Detailed" tab of the results will show each toner cartridge and its percentage of remaining toner.