Brother printer and option "routers"

[Simon Hobson]

Tina Siegenthaler wrote:

>>I'm having a problem with a Brother L-5250DN network printer which 
>>is not accepting ther "routers" option from my DHCP server. The 
>>printer's boot method is set to "DHCP", and indeed it gets a valid 
>>IP and the correct subnet mask, but it always sets the gateway to 
>>0.0.0.0. Which means that no one outside of the printer's subnet 
>>can print to it. All other network devices in that subnet set the 
>>"routers" option correctly, just not that printer. Has anyone seen 
>>anything similar? I'set the printer's IP etc. manually for now, but 
>>I'd rather have it use DHCP.

>Well, in fact this is true for all our Brother printers (been having 
>a look at them). All of them are on DHCP, all of them get an IP and 
>the proper subnet mask (which is also provided by the DHPC server), 
>but they obviously refuse to accept the router address. Any idea why?

Check the packets on the wire with a packet sniffer (eg wireshark) - 
specifically you are looking for the list of options requested, and 
the list of options supplied. IIRC there is a bug in one or more 
recent versions where the client can ask for a list of options, and 
the server sorts them (to put routers, subnet mask, etc) at the 
beginning. The bug manifests itself if the client asks for options in 
a particular order, and the server sends one option twice and omits 
another.

-- 
Simon Hobson

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