printing to non-hp network printers

[Donna Yedziniak_1]

We are setting up printing on a new HP N series server and are having problems with
non-hp printers. Specifically, IBM Infoprint 20 printers. These have their own IBM network card and attach directly to the network with no print server. The server says the printer is not supported. We also have Xerox 4230, Canon, Tektronics.

Any advice would be appreciated as we are new to HP servers.

Thanks,
Donna Yedziniak

[Christopher McCray_1]

Download HP's JetAdmin for HP-UX (HP11d621.SD) from the ITRC. It is relatively easy to use and works well for us. It loads with the swinstall utility.

Hope this helps.

Chris

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

Since the printers do not use an HP JetDirect interface card or external box, the HP software will not work with these interfaces. HP defined a unique standard for network printing on port 9100 but no one else has followed the lead. Instead, the majority of network printer cards implement RFC 1179 as a printing protocol, more commonly known as remote line printing or rlp (sometimes called lpr/lpd too).

Use SAM to setup the remote printers. Hoever, you need an important piece of information about the network card: the internal name of the printer. RFC 1179 defines the server and the printer name and without that name (might be something like raw or text or print, etc), you won't be able to setup the printer.

Note also that you will have to pre-filter any file that is not ready-to-print, and like all Unix systems, ASCII files are not ready to print. Unix ASCII defines each new line with the LF character so to avoid stair-stepped output on the printer, you must use a filter like ux2dos as in:

ux2dos MyFileName | lp -d

Binary files (also known as raw files) can be sent directly to the printer. Alos, there are no options to rotate the image or select a paper tray on the command line as these options must be processed by the remote server 9the network card), so you'll have to add any special codes to control the printout into each print job.

[Donna Yedziniak_1]

Thanks Chris,

I already have JetAdmin, works great with HP printers - it's the non-HP (IBM) I am having trouble with.

Thanks
Donna

[Donna Yedziniak_1]

Thanks, Bill

How would I find the internal name on the card?

Thanks,
Donna

[John Poff]

Hi Donna,

I've worked with setting up networked non-JetDirect printers. You'll probably have to check the documentation for your specific printer to find out the internal name. What model of printer are you trying to work with?

JP

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Donna,

Bill gives execellent advice. ux2dos will probably be needed as many printer vendors think the world runs on Windows. Check your printer manuals.

I don't believe the printers I set up (Ricoh Aficio 450e Digital Copier System) had an internal printer name so I did:

Printer Name whatever you want
Remote System Name must use the name, not an alias, from /etc/hosts or IP address
Remote Printer Name I used the serial number just so it'd be unique

Let us know what happens.

Darrell

[Bill Hassell]

The documentation for the network card must provide this information as it is hardcoded into the card. HP's JetDirect cards use two names, text and raw. When you print to the printer named text, the JetDirect card adds a CR after every LF character automatically, while the printer called raw passes the data direct to the printer.