Printer Queue Size Limit HP-UX

[Brett Alan Logan]

Hi. I am trying to create a print queue on HP-UX 11.00 with a Ricoh script. The remote queue is located on a Solaris box and has a name with 12 characters in it. The Ricoh script fails while trying to create the queue and displays an error stating the queue name size limit is 11 characters. Is there a queue name size limit in HP-UX and if so is there a way to get around this other than creating a new queue on the remote system? Can I do anything on the HP-UX box to solve this? Maybe put an alias in /etc/hosts for a name smaller than 12 characters? Thanks

[Jeff_Traigle · Accepted solution]

The limit cannot be changed. It's probably mentioned in the lpadmin man page. The one for 11.11 states the limit is 14 so HP must have bumped it up slightly between versions.

Are you getting the error because you're trying to name the queue the same on the HP-UX side as it is on the Solaris? Try a shorter name for the queue on HP-UX referencing the remote queue with it's longer name. Same result or does it work?

Other than that possibility, there's no way around it other than creating a queue with a shorter name on the Solaris side (or moving to HP-UX 11.11). Since the printer queue name is the problem, putting aliases in /etc/hosts will do nothing to help you.

[Brett Alan Logan]

Thanks for the fast reply.

I looked at the man page for lpadmin and I see there is a 14 character limit for Printer and Class names with "_" being the only legal character other than numbers and letters. The queue I am trying to create is called NACAP-MIS005. Maybe the "-" is the problem?

This confuses me because the Ricoh script specifically says there is an 11 character limit. Strange.

I'll try the shorter name taking out the "-".

[Jeff_Traigle]

And I just checked the 10.X man page on http://docs.hp.com/, which states the limit was 14 characters also. If it's the Ricoh script limiting you to 11, I'd just modify it to check for 14. :) (Trust HP's documentation, not some third party who probably isn't too savvy on the platform.) You do need to keep it to the legal characters as you saw in the man page, however.

[Brett Alan Logan]

I took out the "-" which lowered my queue name characters to 11 and eliminated the illegal character in HP-UX. It worked after this. Thanks again for the help.

[Bill Hassell]

The 14 character limit is standard for lp (the SysV print spooler) because HP-UX allows short (14 character) and long filenames. So the spooler needs to run in the lowest common denominator, namely 14 characters. However, print jobs are assigned print queue names that include the job number and for BSD print jobs, this is 3 digits (SysV print jobs allow 4 digits). So all print queue names must be 11 characters or less to allow the 3 digit job number. Newer versions of HP-UX may have redesigned the job naming mechanism allowing for larger names.

Another note is that for intersystem compatibility (remote printing), mixed case for queue names will be a problem and to a lesser extent, all UPPERCASE queue names may be create some admin issues. It's best to use lowercase alphanumerics only.