topic Re: Printing issues in Operating System - HP-UX

Printing issues

Victor_101 — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 08:24:34 GMT

Hi guys
I want to clarify HP-UX's printing management capabilities. In windows whenever a printer goes offline or there is a paperjam the printer is set to offline on the print server and consequently the end users and when the printer normal operation is restored , so is the status to each client and the servers.
Is this feature not available in HP-UX 11i v1 ?? Is it compulsory to run a cron job to check for disabled printers and cancel all the jobs and enable each one ? I was hoping for this to be intrinsic.
I have already prepared a cron job to handle this where in I do an LPSTAT -P and determine whether any printer is having a DISABLED status and then do the needful. My problem is that in some cases, if there are too many jobs then the printer queue cannot handle or maybe the buffer and the printer hangs, without disabling.. hence it remains in a status quo until a user complains to the admins .. being that my environment is 24*7 , I cannot afford this very often. Key to note that most of these issues are on Epson ( 2180) printers.
Thanks ,
Victor

Re: Printing issues

RAC_1 — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 08:42:43 GMT

How are these printers configured?? As network printer, as JetDirect or as remote printers??

Re: Printing issues

A. Clay Stephenson — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:08:12 GMT

Probably the best way to handle this is to group similar printers into a printer class. Your users then print to a class rather than a printer and when one member of that class is disabled either manually or automatically by lpsched then the jobs automatically get shifted to the remaining members of the class. Moreover, using a class as the lp destination means that the first available printer is used so that waiting times for printer jobs is reduced.

Re: Printing issues

Charlie Rubeor — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 12:30:36 GMT

I have had similar issues. On our systems, the problem happens with non-hp printers. My work-around was to check for any files in the /var/spool/lp/request subfolders that are more than an hour old. If any are found, then you can do whatever is needed, disable/enable the queue, send an email, etc. I could post the script, if you think it would help. Also, our system is set up to copy files into the spooler directories. So I have no idea if the script works on linked files.

Another possible fix, that I never had time to investigate, was to get current model scripts.

Re: Printing issues

Victor_101 — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 00:17:49 GMT

RAC:
Our printers are EPSON .. mostly LQ 2180. We are printing reports form Oracle Apps 11i. All of them are connected via HP Jet Direct.
CLAY:
Most of these printers are in remote locations where the printers are dedicated to users and hence a class of printers do no apply I presume.
Charlie:
I would like to look at that script

ALL:
Thanks guys for your support, but my primary question was .. doesn't HP support this kind of activity ? should'nt it be intrinsic like how Windows manages printers or atleast something similar ? why are we looking for walkarounds ?

Re: Printing issues

Charlie Rubeor — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 08:00:01 GMT

For what it's worth, using Clay's idea and setting up printer classes will be of some benefit. I do that at one of our remote sites. It allows you to reset queues that are hung up, but the users can still get their print requests from the other queues in the class.

Here's the script that I use. It works from a list of the print queues and email addresses, in /var/tmp/print_queues. For example:

wmitlj5m charlie.rubeor@wiremold.com
wmitlj4100 charlie.rubeor@wiremold.com

The script is attached. Hope it helps.