Print on remote printserver using cups.

[Karl_]

Hi,

We have a LNX server with cups installed(as a print server). I tried to create a remote printer in one of our HP-UX boxes and pointed it into one printer in the print server.

I get an error when I lpstat the printer. Pls refer below:


===========================================
# lpstat mrtest1
mrtest1-1617 root priority 0 Apr 26 14:38 on mrtest1
000srOSX.DVE 22393 bytes

printer queue for mrtest1
HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 04:41:48 GMT
Server: CUPS/1.1
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 101

Bad Request

Bad Request

develop: waiting for queue to be enabled on printsrv
============================================

What do you think is wrong between the unix and print server?

Thanks,

Karl

[Senthil Kumar .A_1]

Hi karl,

Did you atleast fire a test job to the remote printer. Try this first..form HPUX end.

lp -Dmrtest1

After firing the job, check atleast is it printing some garbage. There by atleast we would be sure that connection between the print subsystems are fine, and start troubleshooting specific to cups.. The below link might be helpful if you have CUPS specific configuration errors.

http://www.linuxprinting.org/kpfeifle/LinuxKongress2002/Tutorial/VII.cups-help/VII.cups-help.html

[Karl_]

Hi,

It seems that CUPS do not accept the LP command of HP-UX.

The printer is now working when our network admin activated the backward compatibility configuration of cups (that's he's explanation to us).

Before the backward compatibility was activated, we always get a "bad request" error when we send an LP command to the printer using CUPS.

Is there a way to update the LP utility of the HP-UX server? Our network admin told us to update the LP utility of HP-UX because he will deactivate the backward compatibility in 2 weeks time.

Thanks,

Karl

[Matti_Kurkela]

CUPS and HP-UX lp use different printing protocols. CUPS's native protocol is IPP (a HTTP-based protocol), but it has compatibility modules for use with other protocols, like SMB (Windows printing) or BSD lpr protocol.

HP-UX lp uses "traditional" SysV lp printing system, with compatibility options for BSD lpr printing system.

As far as I know, there is no possibility to update the HP-UX lp to use IPP (to be compatible with CUPS's native format). However, you *can* replace the HP-UX lp with CUPS client; it is a major task though.

Basically, it means shutting down HP-UX lp spooler and forgetting it exists, then installing CUPS on HP-UX, ensuring its tools are available in the PATH before the HP-UX standard tools and then doing all printer configurations through CUPS.

It is possible there are applications hardcoded to use HP-UX lp, in which case you might be unable to print from them after migrating to CUPS. Many more applications will adapt to the new situation, but may need some configuration.

The easiest solution is probably to leave the CUPS' backward compatibility running: the CUPS print server administrator certainly has various means to allow it to be used only by those servers that need it (i.e. HP-UX servers): CUPS configuration, TCP wrapper on cups-lpd compatibility module, or iptables firewalling.

[Karl_]

Hi Matti,

Thanks for your reply. We have activated the backward compatibility of CUPS temporarily because the IT management does not want this feature to be activated.

They want us to find an up-to-date solution for the incompatibiliy. We also tried activating BSD Printing in HP-UX server but the cups server still receives "bad request".

We also do not want to install cups in the HP-UX server because its required libraries might affect then the libraries currently installed in the system.

Any suggestion is highly appreciated.

Thanks,

Karl

[Matti_Kurkela]

Tough luck.

Without the "backward compatibility option" CUPS speaks only IPP.

With the option, CUPS understands BSD lpr (and also HP-UX SysV lp style, since it's very similar).

HP-UX standard installation can only use lp/lpr. With JetDirect software installed, it can print "direct to port 9100/tcp". These are the only HP-supported options.

So it seems that lp/lpr is the only common language between vanilla HP-UX and CUPS.

Here's a list of IPP-aware things from the IPP standard organization:
http://www.pwg.org/ipp/IPP-Products.html

Not much choice for HP-UX, I'm afraid: at first glance, only CUPS and ESP PrintPro seem to be available for HP-UX. CUPS is free, ESP PrintPro is commercial software.