You're welcome.

Hi James,

Thanks the the feedback.  The link I just tested is www.hp.com/.../dss_software and appears to be working now.  Was there another link you were referring to?  If not I'm guessing the link above may have just been down temporarily for maintenance.

Brian.

Oops, just realized the last link was indeed pointing the the wrong URL.  Thanks James, correcting now.  Take care,

Hi Joe, I hope you don't mind, I wanted to keep some of the information you shared private, so I just shared the key extract.

For everyone else reading this blog, when DSS talks to HP Edgeline devices it's really only being used to configure settings within the device (scan jobs don't route through DSS given the companion that's built into edgeline making this irrelevant).

I can answer part of your question now, the other I'll investigate and report back.  Yes, you can allow for email without user authentication (with or without DSS).  I would suggest you lock the "from" field at a minimum to prevent users from spoofing one another.  Take the following steps:

Step 1: in the embedded web server for the device, go to "Settings" -> "Device Sign-in".  Choose customized settings where users are not required to authenticate for email.

Step 2: in the embedded web server for the device, go to "Digital Sending" -> "Email Setup" and be sure to specify settings like the email (SMTP) server, the default FROM address (e.g. MFP-XYZ@COMPANY.COM) and select "Restrict users from editing the FROM field".

Now on restricting access to address book entries exclusively, I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head but will ask.  Is the concern that the user community does not want emails leaving the corporation unless they're sending them from their desktop PC?  Another approach might be to ensure SMTP rules reject outbound relay where they see the HP digital sending X-header.

PS - for the others, disabling authentication for email is not my first recommendation but it may be appropriate based on the comfort level of customers depending on trust of the user community, controlled building access and if the information is contained within the corporation.  If the goal is keeping security tight AND making it easy for users to authenticate, another approach is using PINs, Swipe-cards, Proximity Badges or Smart-Cards.  PIN access is built in for free in the Edgeline product.  The other options are available as optional add-ons from HP and its partner community.

Joe, I did validate that the ability to restrict access to the local address book is not available on the HP Edgeline device.  It has been a feature that others have requested but the best I can suggest for now is to ask the Exchange/Notes/Groupwise administrator within the environment to restrict outbound emails at the SMTP server if that's what the concern is.  In fact, you may find this could be the case already.  There's an X-Header in HP MFP Digital Sending Products (MFP's and Digital Senders) called "X-HP-DIGITAL_Sender: HP Digital Sender Service".  You could ask the SMTP administrator to filter on that or even just on the HP hostname (default is NPI##### where #'s are the last 6 characters of the MAC address).  I know this may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's the best suggestion I can offer for now.  Take care,

Hi Eric, you had asked about support for Server 2008?  There are plans to offer this support, but it is not currently available for the HP MFP Digital Sending Software version 4.x platform.  I can't say exactly when this is coming, but just that it is and would require Server 2008 with the full GUI (so not the "Core" distributions).  When support is released for Server 2008 in future product, I'll be sure to announce and comment on this.  Take care,

Hi William, this feature is available for embedded sending (was just added in the latest firmware release).  While it is not currently available with devices controlled by the HP MFP Digital Sending Software, I'll be sure to comment on it if it's added in the future releases.  DSS does have a feature called "Workflow" (which can send to folder or FTP) and one of the configurable fields there is the OCR Filename.  Hope this helps.

Yes.  the HP MFP Digital Sending and embedded features within the device if not using DSS should be able to access any CIFS (typically Windows) or SMB share (typically Unix/Linux).  Keep in mind a test file is written and deleted transparently, so you'll need to make sure it's not just write access you have enabled.

The device's embedded functions as well as DSS also support FTP as a destination which is quite prevalent in the Linux/Unix/Windows world.

Take Care, Brian.

Hello Francis, unfortunately I cannot direct through to support through this public blog.  If you were on support for that length of time, I can certainly appreciate how frustrating that must have been.  You may wish to choose the online chat or logging a case electronically via ITRC (http://itrc.hp.com) using Case Manager - Enterprise Edition.