Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 14:59:21 -0800
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]Subject: Another way to crash HP printers
A few months ago, I reported that you could crash HP 5m printers by doing a
multivarible SNMP query on the interpreters table.
I have since found a similar problem that applies to all HP 5 series
printers whose firmware datecode is less than 19960829.
The easiest way to figure out if your printer is affected is to use a
snmptool such as those from UC Davis
(http://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/ucd-snmp/) and try the command:
snmpget printername public 43.15.1.1.4.1.1
The easiest way to manifest the bug is to use a program like npadmin
(http://www.penguincomputing.com/prtools/npadmin.html) and try to
examine a large table like the interpreters or channels table:
npadmin --languages printername
or
npadmin --protocol printername
The bug leaves the printer in different conditions depending on the
JetDirect firmware revision, the model of the printer, and possibly
the state of the printer at the time of the attack. In many cases it
leaves the printer with a 79(12BF) or 79(9208) error but still
pingable. In this state it may even accept one print job but not print
it. In other cases, ther error message in the display is missing. In a
few cases the printer is left unpingable.
The problem seems to be independant of the JetDirect hardware and
firmware revision and so doing a flash upgrade will not solve the
problem. The problem seems to be due to a bug in the printer firmware,
often times called the formwatter, which crashes when certain
multivariable SNMP queries are executed. Upgrading the formatter
software involves replacing some hardware within the printer and so
this can not be trivially done.
I reported this bug to HP a couple of days ago, and they believe that
it is the same bug that causes all HP 5m's to crash on certain
multivariable queries. They are in the process of preparing a
JetDirect flash upgrade that works around the bug in the formatter.
-ben
