How to know what data was printed ?

[Olivier Decorse]

hello,
i'm searching to know the data an printer as receive and printed. Not only the date and the user, but all the data.

It seems that the /var/spool/lp/outputq containts this information, but because his binary format, i can't read it !
Is it readable, or is there an other file that containts this information.

Thank's. Olivier.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi,

You have two sources of data:
1) the lpstat command - man lpstat for details
2) the interface files
Each print queue (e.g. myprinter) has an interface script associated with /var/spool/lp/interface/myprinter

The lp commands feeds this script like this:
/var/spool/lp/interface/P id user title copies options file1 file2 ...

P - the name of the printer (e.g. myprinter)
id - lp request id
user - logname of user who made the request
title - optional report title
copies - number of copies requested by the user
options - the -o options passed to the lp command
file1 file2 - files to be printed

You could modify each of the interface files to
capture and log any of this data.

This should get you started, Clay

[Victor_5]

If your printer is a network printer, type
lpstat -o

You will be tell all the jobs in the queue, and see the printing percentage at the same time, however, if it is a serial printer, I have no idea since you only can get the total size of those jobs. Mabye you can calculate the estimate time.

[Olivier Decorse]

Thank you for your response, but :
1) it seems that the /var/spool/lp/output file almost containts this information, whitout including it in the filter file (is it a output file used by system ?) : so how is it possible to read/decode it ?
2) the lpstat prints what the lp will print, not what the lp has printed !!

thank's in advance for your response.
Olivier.

[Andreas Voss]

Hi,

i've made a hack of outputq.
Put you a binary file at attachment, i called it lplast.
Try it !

Regards

[Andreas Voss · Accepted solution]

Hi,

sorry i've seen that binary attachments are not downloadable.
So now here's the file within a zip-archive.

Regards

[Rainer von Bongartz]

Andreas,

Thanks for lplast, really usefull stuff !!!
Should be worth 10 points.

Regards
Rainer

[Olivier Decorse]

Thank's a lot, Andreas !! It is very useful!!!
Your're right Rainer : should be worth 10 points !!
A last question, Andreas : you prints the size information : does the output file contains the data that were printed and is it possible to display it !?

Thank's in advance, Olivier.

[SAM_24]

Hi Andreas,

Your script is awesome.
We were looking this type of output.

Thanks a lot.

Raj

[SAM_24]

Hi,

We don't know what is the printer status blocked means? Any idea?

Thanks
Raj