Abstract: The current invention provides method and apparatus for communications between network attached peripheral devices and one or more server nodes for the collection of data from the peripheral devices. In an alternate embodiment of the invention a method and apparatus for monitoring peripheral devices on a network is disclosed. In an alternate embodiment of the invention a method and apparatus for remotely configuring network peripheral devices is disclosed. In an alternate embodiment of the invention a method for enabling a web browser to provide a graphical user interface (GUI) for monitoring peripheral devices on the internet is disclosed.