PCL6 driver script for LP subsystem?

[Michael Snyder]

With the advent of the latest LaserJet printers coming out, the straightforward question is:

Where can one find a model/interface script for the PCL6 printers?

Now for the story behind the question:

This shop has an older K-class system running an accounting system. All printer administration has been done through the CLI for jetadmin.

The LJ4000 printers that were coming through the door last year seemed to be fine with being told they are a Laserjet 4. The newest printer is (I think) a LJ4200 (?), and seems to come out of the box as PCL6 by default (where the 4100's seemed to come out of the box as PCL5 by default). Unfortunately, a few dozen PC's were set up to use the printer in its native default mode (PCL6), and when we tell the K-class system to print to it, we get garbage. I'd force the printer to PCL5 and reconfigure desktops, but this has a high exposure that makes this difficult.

I also cannot seem to find an updated "jetadmin" package that isn't Web-based and such. Any ideas where I can get a real, updated, PCL6 model/interface script, or an updated CLI jetadmin package?

Best Regards,
Mike

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Mike,

Well, I'm not sure. The latest lpspool cumulative - PHCO_29208:

http://www2.itrc.hp.com/service/patch/patchDetail.do?BC=patch.breadcrumb.main|patch.breadcrumb.search|&patchid=PHCO_29208&context=hpux:800:11:00

still doesn't list any PCL6 devices. So I suspect you'll have to contact HP - they may have a site-specific or beta patch for you because these lp cumulative patches are what bring in the model files.

Rgds,
Jeff

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I have some LJ4200's which work just fine with the net_ljx000 interface. You need to download and install the latest JetDirect software from: http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Lookup?h_query=jet+direct+printer+installer&h_tool=software&h_lang=en

After you are installed, you can run the transferqueue local
and respond "all" when prompted
command to convert all your JetAdmin printers
to JetDirect command. The "hppi" command is the replacement for the "jetadmin" command and it too is terminal based.

[Bill Hassell]

There are NO drivers for printers in HP-UX. Instead, there are simple scripts that are used to modify ASCII printouts. PCL5 and PCL6 are the languages used inside the printer. The lp spooler never modifies the contents of a printjob, but instead prepends and/or postpends a few escape sequences to control things like duplex or landscape. The basic PCL sequences for LaserJets has been the same for more than a decade so the PCL level is irrelevant for the printer scripts. The difference between the various model scripts are the options. For instance, the laserjet script has the same -o10 -o12 -olandscape etc options found in a PCL5 script...and it produces the same escape sequences.

So the first thing to do is to swremove the jetadmin software (the current lp state will not be affected). Then download and install HPPI and you'll now run /opt/hpnpl/bin/hppi which has a similar interface. However, with the updated software (jetadmin has been obsolete and unsupported since 2000 and is not Y2K safe), you can use an even easier one liner to add the printer:

/opt/hpnpl/bin/addqueue -h 12.34.56.78 -q mylj4200

If the printer is connected to the network, the entire task is completed in a couple of seconds. You can also use hppi to add or modify the printer. Note that addqueue also exists for later versions of jetadmin but because it hasn't been updated for 3 years, new printers simple aren't found.

[Michael Snyder]

This gives me the pointers I need to either A) replace the JetAdmin software with the newer JetDirect Printer Manager. Ideally, since we have stability, I think what I'd really like to do is to find the interface script bundled with the new software, and retrofit it to the existing environment.

I have to differ with the "no difference between PCL5 and PCL6" intimation, as the new 4200 printer absolutely does not work with the traditional PCL5 variants that live within JetAdmin.

I appreciate all the pointers, and want to soapbox just a little bit on HP's decline in covering some of these issues: Things like:

- I could find nothing within ITRC that gave a good indication of the superceding product or utility once JetAdmin was obsoleted.
- searches continually pointed me to links for WebJetadmin, or to Windows-system drivers.
- even an explicit search of "PCL6 lp interface script" and "PCL6 lp model script" did nothing to give me any HP-UX resources or pointers to where I could get a leg-up on supporting HP's newest printers on some of HP's older hardware.

Forgive me for using the word "driver" earlier; even though I know that we're using interface scripts, the web site itself keeps making me talk in non-HP/UX speak by virtue of the answers it's been giving lately...

Thanks Folks!

[Bill Hassell]

JetAdmin has been obsolete for so long that the obsolescence link has been removed. (search for jetadmin from HP's main web site and you'll see the link for JetAdmin obsolescence is dead). There are dozens of postings in the ITRC forums about JetAdmin being replaced by HPPI. Just search the forums for: jetadmin hppi

The inconsistent navigation to locate JetDirect management tools for HP-UX has been a multi-year problem. The webmasters for the JetDirect products have always been focused on PCs and the ultra-glamorous WebJetAdmin is prevalent throughout all the links. As most Unix admins tend to prefer command line tools, it would appear that Unix support is minimal. But it really is there, just very difficult to locate. And as you've seen, HP-UX specific keywords will not find the software as the HP-UX (and Solaris) versions have minimal documentation on the web.

As far stability, JetAdmin is DEFINITELY not a production product. It is known to have Y2K errors in it and as you have seen, it has no clue about any printer built in the last 4 years. It is obsolete and unsupported and has been since late 1999. You'll find HPPI is quite simple to use with a lot of similarities to JetAdmin, but for printers that are already setup on the network, I never use hppi (or jetadmin in the old days). I just use addqueue.

I'm not clear about the PCL6 problem. There is no script that even mentions PCL6 in either the /usr/lib/lp/model directory or the /opt/hpnpl/sh directory. I'm not sure how PCs fit into your picture. Each print job sent by HP-UX starts with the printer reset command (echo "\033E\033%-12345X\c") so regardless of what a PC may have done previously, the printer starts over. And PCL6, like all previous versions of PCL, is backward compatible. That means that sending "abc" to the printer will print ABC, and sending an escape sequence to select 10 characters per inch will set that pitch.

So I'm not sure why the printer got into a state where simple text could not be printed from HP-UX. Now if the printer is a remote network printer, a whole new set of questions come into play. Are you adding the printer as a true JetDirect local printer or are you telling HP-UX to send the print jobs to some WinNT server? That changes everything.

[Michael Snyder]

Well, the "old software" issue comes in here because the K-class server is running an ancient accounting system for which no vendor support exists any more. We're in a "frozen state", as we cannot afford to patch ourselves up-to-date for fear that we break the application. Fortunately, the system isn't publicly accessable, so security issues are handled through very intensive firewalling.

The print queue is being set up as a JetDirect Local Queue (so hpnpf, the model/interface script, and all the LP subsystem dressings) are in play here. Specifically, along with garbage output, when we do get the occasional clear page, it will not observe portrait/landscape options, duplexing options, or condensed print options.

The best pointer I could find outside of HP (docs, ITRC, etc.) was some application-specific hits on a Google search. When the situation was encountered, it almost universally involved a fix that required setting the printer to PCL5 mode. This seems to indicate either A) there are intrinsic differences in PCL6 that do not allow it to execute PCL5 directives as desired, or B) there's some magic that needs to occur, because if PCL6 is truly backward compatible, I should be able to replace a LaserJet4 with a LJ4200, set the network parameters to the same address/netmask/etc., and get the same result with no reconfiguration required. I can't, it won't, it is unreasonable to call out 3-digit price-per-hour consulting to solve the problem, and nobody is going to do it for free since this appears to be the only place in the universe where PCL6 isn't backward-compatible.

The last part is clearly some frustration that, after all the millions upon millions that the world has invested in PA-RISC hardware, one can't even get a simple directory of HP-UX-based simple shell scripts located on the companion CD's that come with these printers. A real, precise, not-relying-on-alleged-backward-compatability model script that I could drop into this system would be greatly appreciated. Not that I'm holding my breath...

Now that I'm done with what may be construed as a "rant", I'm going to get back to seeing what I can extract from the newer tools that have the obscure links to solve the problem. Don't let the last part diminish the appreciation I feel for the pointers that will hopefully solve the problem.

[Mark Greene_1]

Is your K-system running 10.20 or 11.x? That may be an underlying issue.

Here's a link for the JetAdmin printer installer:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?locale=en_US&pnameOID=18922&taskId=135&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=27349〈=en&cc=us&swEnvOID=7

Here's a link for some model scripts:

http://www.hp.com/pond/modelscripts/

(I've no clue how up-to-date they are)

And finally, here's the details on using model scripts:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?locale=en_US&taskId=115&prodSeriesId=27349&prodTypeId=18972&objectID=bpj06112

Good luck,
mark