Auto-registration of devices with Unified Client

Devices which have Unified Clients installed are managed through the Device Registration Service (DRS) and are compatible with several different Kofax products including Equitrac, ShareScan, and so on. Therefore these devices are not managed directly in ShareScan Administration Console but in DRS.

As a result, Unified Clients cannot be added to ShareScan through the usual Add Devices dialog which could be used in the past to register devices with ShareScan.

The 'wiring' which tells the client how to communicate with the ShareScan Manager can be specified in the DRS. After the wiring has been configured for the device, it will be able to communicate with the ShareScan Manager.

Unified Clients are automatically registered to the ShareScan database the first time when they start to communicate with the ShareScan Manager. During auto-registration, all devices with Unified Client are added under the Unified Clients user group.

Once a device with Unified Client is auto-registered, it automatically appears in the Devices tab of Administration Console under the Unified Clients device group. These auto-registered devices can be moved outside this group or they can be dropped to any other device group if necessary.

The list of devices in ShareScan Administration Console is not updated automatically, but it can be refreshed on-demand via the context menu of the Devices tab.

Connector profiles assigned to the Unified Clients group will be the default set of workflows available for auto-registered devices. By moving the device out of this group, it becomes possible to assign connector profiles to individual devices or it can be moved to a different device group.

To allow some control for the ShareScan administrator over the devices which use Unified Client, ShareScan provides a white list of IP addresses / ranges through which the administrator can allow / block devices with the specified IP addresses. This gives an extra security factor since ShareScan administrators have a tool to control the list of devices that can be served through the given ShareScan server. This IP address filtering is optional. If the IP address white list is not defined, ShareScan will not block any devices which have been registered in DRS previously.

Unified Client IP address filtering

To limit the IP addresses devices can connect from, ShareScan introduces an IP filtering mechanism.

The IP filter can be configured in the ShareScan Administration Console. Right click on the Device Configuration panel and select Set Unified Client auto register filter from the context menu.

Specify individual IP addresses or IP address ranges to the filter in the IP configuration dialog. When all the required IP addresses and IP address ranges are added, click OK to close the dialog.

The ShareScan manager will use this IP address filter configuration and refuse serving the requests coming from other IP addresses.

Since reading this IP address filter configuration in case of each request would cause a significant performance impact, the filter value is cached in ShareScan Manager service. The expiration time of this cached value can also be configured as an advanced setting in ShareScan Administration Console.

The value specified here is measured in minutes. If the ShareScan Manager wants to use the IP address filter configuration to check if a request can be served or not, it will also check the age of the cached value. If the cached value is older than the configured expiration value, then the Manager will reload the IP filter configuration and use the new value.

Adding devices

This feature discovers and selects eCopy enabled device or devices using UDP, SNMP, SNMP V3 or TCP/IP protocols and adds them to the Device tab.

It also allows you to manually detect a device. Each device you add to the system is associated with a Manager.

Specify non-default SNMP Community Name for Device Discovery

When the administrator starts the Add devices operation in the Administration Console, different discovery methods can be specified. The SNMP and TCP/IP discovery methods use SNMP protocol for querying information about devices. Only those devices are gathered on the device list whose SNMP GET community name matches the value of the SNMPCommunityName variable specified at the Advanced ShareScan Settings. The default value is public.

Devices in some network environment have non-default SNMP GET community name for higher security reasons. In this case, the SNMPCommunityName must be modified to contain the non-default value set on the devices.

A special discovery method is used when the SNMPCommunityName is an empty string. This setting might be used when SNMP is disabled on the devices or on the entire network (UDP 161 port is blocked).

In this case, the TCP/IP discovery on the Add Devices dialog uses DNS lookup to reach devices on the network and it does not use SNMP to query the device vendor. Because the vendor is not recognized, the device vendor field needs to be specified on the dialog, and the discovered devices are listed with the specified vendor even if the actual device vendor might be different.

When the SNMP discovery is selected on the Add Devices dialog and SNMPCommunityName is empty, the SNMP discovery works and uses the default public SNMP GET community name.

Non-default community name is supported with SNMP based device discovery. If you use the non-default community name, change the ShareScan SNMPCommunityName advanced setting. If SNMP is disabled on your network, the SNMPCommunityName advanced setting must be deleted to become empty and the IP range search will be functional. Also set the vendor value for proper search results.

New devices from the same manufacturer inherit their initial settings from the default device.
When adding a device, be aware that the Administration Console resolves the name of the device via the DNS, and the name registered in the DNS is used to update the name of the device in the device tree, if the name registered in the DNS is different from the name given in the administration UI device. This way, the name can change after adding the device to ShareScan.

To add a device to the Manager

Make sure that the device that you want to add is running and that the ShareScan Client is running on the device. For more information on ShareScan Client, see related Installation Guide document.
This is valid only for non web-based (embedded) clients. For web-based clients, there are no additional steps needed to get the device connected.
You can either right-click Device configuration and select the Add device menu item or click the Add device on the ribbon bar to discover and add eCopy-enabled devices.

The Add devices window opens. The window displays available devices along with information such as the host name, the IP address, the Client software version, and the Manager that is currently managing the device.
If a device you want to add does not appear in the list of available devices, select a protocol from the Discovery list in and click Refresh.
Select the device or devices you want to license and then click OK.
When the system prompts you to confirm the device you want to add to the device list, click Yes.

If the device model cannot be detected due to firewall/network restriction, a pre-populated list pops up the user can select from.

Add devices settings

Settings	Description
Discovery	The following device discovery modes are available: UDP, SNMP, TCP/IP, Import and SNMP V3. The default value is UDP. When the Import option is selected, a Windows file open dialog is displayed and you have to specify a CSV file for import. For details on the CSV file format and the vendor specific requirements, consult the relevant Installation Guide. DeviceLocatorPingTimeout Advanced ShareScan setting controls ping\connect\send and receive timeouts for optimal TCP scan; The default value is 3000 milliseconds.
Vendor	Select your device vendor from the list (default value is none).
Device name/IP	If you choose TCP/IP in Discovery setting, enter a device name or IP address. The value cannot be empty. The parameter name should follow a hostNameOrAddress pattern. If an invalid IP address is specified, a message Failed to retrieve data for: occurs.
IP range	The IP range value (From). The range of the valid IP addresses is defined by your network configuration. For detailed information, contact the IT personnel in your organization. Example: A valid IP Range is from 10.10.12.1 to 10.10.12.55. Invalid/Unsupported IP Range is 10.10.12.1 to 10.10.13.5.
To	The IP range value (To). The value follows an xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx pattern. If you enter an invalid value, an Invalid IP Range...verify and try again message occurs.
SNMP V3 Credentials	Click this button to open the SNMP V3 Credentials dialog to specify credentials.
Refresh	Clicking the Refresh button forces the Administration Console to scan the network for available devices.
Devices group window	Select the check box on the dialog and click OK to add to the devices list. If no connectors are selected for the device, then an appropriate message is presented at the ShareScan Client. Devices list includes the following values: Host name: The host name of the device where the client is running. Note: Not all types of devices provide the host name in this list. Instead, the IP address is shown as the host name. IP address: The IP address of the device where the client is running. Vendor: Vendor name of the device where the client is running. Version: The current version of the client. In case of web-based clients, this is the current ShareScan version. Manager: The name of the manager if the client is already configured. Domain: The domain name in which the client is running. Location: The location of the client, typically a description entered at the MFP. Embedded: A flag indicating whether the client is embedded in the MFP or not (Yes/No).
Total	Total number of currently detected devices.
OK	Clicking the OK button adds any devices “checked” to the Devices tab. It does not add the devices to any group.
Cancel	Closes the dialog without adding any devices.
(Sorting)	Any column in the list can be sorted by clicking on the columns header. Once sorted, you can quickly search through the list (host names only) by clicking on the first column and start typing in the desired host name. Clicking the same column header toggles between ascending/descending order.

SNMP V3 device discovery

Besides the former SNMP v1/v2 protocol support, ShareScan supports SNMP v3 for device discovery. Since the Read community name and Write community name are transferred in plain text format on the Intranet, security of the communication is jeopardized. SNMP v3 communicates via a secret channel after a handshake.

The SNMP V3 Credentials dialog displays the OK button if the device discovery option selected is other than SNMP v3 (for example, TCP/IP) and you wish to obtain further information from the device, like Host Name. The credential information provided here are preserved in memory, only for the runtime status of the Administration Console. You can modify them during Administration Console runtime via clicking the SNMP V3 Credentials button on the Add devices dialog. All the available options in this dialog must be filled in except for the Context name (it can be empty if it cannot be provided on the device, or it can be provided but was left empty).

Not all settings are configurable on each device; in certain cases users can simply have a look at the hard-coded setting of a device (for example, certain Xerox devices have no Context name and it must be left empty on our dialog, whereas the Encryption Algorithm and Authentication Method cannot be configured but only observed; these must be set to the same setting in ShareScan).

If SNMP v3 is selected from the Discovery list, the Start Discovery button is shown on the SNMP V3 Credentials dialog. If you click this button, discovery starts immediately.

User Name: Specify a preferred user name
Authentication Password: Specify password including uppercase, lowercase and alphanumeric characters
Authentication Method: Select Default, MD5 or SHA1 from the menu
Privacy Password: Different from Authentication password
Encryption Method: Select Default, DES or AES from the menu
Context name: Must match the same specified under the SNMPv3 settings on the device web administration page

The credential information specified in the SNMP V3 Credentials dialog must be the same as configured on the device web administration surface.

If the Add Device dialog is opened again, the devices which are already added are automatically checked and the font is in italic and has light blue background for that row, which is an indication that this device was detected in the network, but is already added to the current ShareScan Manager.

During the device addition, several Wizard screens or dialogs may appear, depending on the type of device being added.

Once the device is added and selected on the Device Configuration tab, the entire configuration UI is displayed in the viewing area (including Connector Profile selection, Settings, and Scanner).

The ShareScan Manager uses the model name to control the rotation behavior of the ShareScan Manager, when creating the output document (pages) from the scanned images. The different MFP vendors and the specific models of the vendors may show different behavior with regards the orientation of the scanned files in the different scanning modes, depending on paper size, single or double sided mode, feeding source and so on.

The Model name (in the dialog that appears as part of device addition procedure) differs from the name of the Device (displayed in the tree control on the Device tab). The tree control on the Device tab contains the network (host) name of the devices (or the IP address of the devices, if the host name cannot be resolved). This ID is used as a unique identifier for the devices in the ShareScan system. This cannot be changed in the Administration Console, only via the Device administration user interface and / or in the network DNS (Domain name server).

The ShareScan Manager has a built-in configuration file called RotationAngles.xml (and a similar one for the ScanStation devices with the name ScanStationRotationAngles.xml). This describes the “factory default” values for the different vendors and models to ensure that the output pages have the correct orientation. These files are not to be changed by the user (administrator).

However, there can be new models and firmware updates that interfere with these settings and result in an unexpected rotation of the page(s) with specific combinations of the scanner settings. To resolve these issues without product updates and hotfixes, there is an override file to define rules for these special cases, called UserRotationAngles.xml (and UserScanStationRotationAngles.xml, respectively for ScanStation devices).

If you have any issue with the orientation of the pages of the output document, contact technical support where you will be provided with appropriate documentation and support to set up the exception rules in the mentioned files.

To enable some model/device specific control features, a model name needs to be assigned after the successful addition of the device is completed. This is done on a dialog that appears automatically after the device addition. In this dialog, model names are offered to select from, but you also have the option to specify a unique name that can be any character string. This model name is used to properly set up some model-specific behaviors like rotation of scanned pages and so on.