root can't print, others can

[JUP]

I am running HPUX 11.23 on Itanium.
I have set up a network printer. All users can print OK to it, however the root user cannot print. The print job from the root user can be seen in lpstat however does not go to the printer.

I have looked in /var/adm/lp/log file and get the following entry whenever root attempts to print:

lpsched: invalid parameters

However when another user prints, it prints ok.

Does anyone know what could be causing this problem.

Thanks in advance
JUP

[Steve Steel]

Hi


Bad path


Try /usr/bin/lp when printing as root


Steve Steel

[RAC_1]

what is the command that you use??

[TwoProc]

Check that root has write permission to /dev/null, it may have gotten changed...

[Rick Garland]

It will take root to add the printer, or at least membership in the 'lp' group. On my ia64 systems I have root in the 'lp' group.

Other thing to look at would be the $PATH as memtioned.

[JUP]

Thanks for everyones replies, however still no luck.
Here are answers to your questions:

#echo $PATH returns:

/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:.

#which lp returns:

/bin/lp

#ls -al /dev/null returns:

rw-rw-rw bin bin /dev/null


#ls -al /bin/lp /usr/bin/lp returns

r-sr-xr-x root bin /bin/lp
r-sr-xr-x root bin /usr/bin/lp

both lp are same size and no diffs exists.

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Only root does not print, the job stays in the queue but when I login or 'su' to another user that user prints

Thanks in advance
JUP

[JUP]

BTW - root is in the lp group.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Rather than doing an lp myfile as root do a cat myfile | lp and see if that works. It's possible that you are under a very restrictive mountpoint as root that the lp daemon can access and cat'ing the file will take care of that. I don't think that is really your problem. I'm leaning towards a difference in environments, especially lp related env vars (PRINTER,LPDEST,LC_*). Man lp and look under EXTERNAL INFLUENCES for these variables and then do an env as root and as a regular user and compare them. Root is never denied permission so this can't be a permissions problem. By the way, "type lp" is a more definitive test than "which lp" for determining the actual connand that will be executed.

[JUP]

Unfortunately still no luck with this one.

When I run hppi (jet driver for network printer) from root and select diagnostics and print a test page it prints OK. What does the jet driver do differently that the lp command ?

But when I run it through lp from the unix prompt it does not work. The print job actually goes to the print spooler and shows up when I do a lpstat -t.
However it never leaves the spooler. When another job is sent by another user it goes to the printer.


Thanks for the replies so far and further assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
JUP

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

JUP,

double check your /dev/null file.

# ll /dev/null
crw-rw-rw- 1 bin bin 3 0x000002 Apr 1 16:01 /dev/null
# file /dev/null
/dev/null: character special (3/2)

Looks like yours is a regular file.

Robert-Jan

[JUP]

Thanks Robert-Jan,

however the /dev/null is exactly the same as the way you had it in your listing.

One of my earlier posts was just showing a summary of the listing of /dev/null.

Any other thoughts ?
JUP

[Tiffany Rawls_4]

Did you ever get an answer to this problem. I am having the same problem with another user.

[JUP]

No unfortunately not.

Still having problems with root not being able to print.

The only way around it for now is to chmod the file from root so other users can access it then log out and login as another user to print it.

If you find the solution, please post it here.

Thanks
JUP

[Ermin Borovac]

Have you tried tracing lpsched with tusc? It may help you find the problem.

If you don't have tusc you can get it from here.

ftp://ftp.cup.hp.com/dist/networking/tools/tusc.7.7.ia64.shar

You can run attach to running lpsched as root

# tusc -o /tmp/tusc.out -ccc -f -l -n -p -E -v -T%T -b 80 -r all -w all

Then check tusc.log or post it here.