Setting up non networked printers

[Scott Dunkley]

Hello,

I have a customer who doesnt use networked printers, instead they have printers hanging off of individual PCs'. How can i configure these printers to be usable from HP-UX, are they set up as remote printers? I have tried using SAM but dont understand all the fields it is asking me for for example is it BSD or not ? remote printer name?

[Scott Dunkley]

some more info, I have tried to set one of these printers up at my office,and after trying to print to it, lpstat -t shows the following information:

# lpstat -t
scheduler is running
no system default destination
device for support4si: /dev/null
device for scott: /dev/null
remote to: 192.0.1.14 on 192.0.1.14
support4si accepting requests since Jun 25 13:04
scott accepting requests since Apr 15 14:20
printer support4si is idle. enabled since Jun 25 13:04
fence priority : 0
printer scott now sending scott-25 to 192.0.1.14. enabled since Apr 15 14:20
fence priority : 0
scott-25 root priority 0 Apr 15 14:25 on scott
profile 2491 bytes
connection to 192.0.1.14 is down

ssihp13: waiting for 192.0.1.14 to come up


As you can see I get the message that it is waiting for the PCs' IP address to "come up". The PC is up and the printer is online, so I guess I configured it wrong.

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Scott:

You need to specify three basic items. The first a name of the queue on your server; the second is an IPaddress or (better) a hostname of the remote printer; and the third is the queue supported by the remote printer.

If you aren't using DNS, define your printer (PC) hostnames in 'etc/hosts'.

The remote print queue is usually something like "text1" or "lpt1_passthru", etc. depending on the remote offering.

The BSD toggle (as I recall) limits the size of the job number generated.

Regards!

...JRF...

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again) Scott:

Remember that the PC hosting the attached printer must run some form of LPD/LPR software(Line Printer Daemon/Line Printer Remote).

Regards!

...JRF...

[Scott Dunkley]

Hi James, thanks for your quick response.

Its that 3rd bit that gets me, what do you mean by

"and the third is the queue supported by the remote printer."


What do you mean by remote offering, should i be looking up on the PC what the printer is called? How do i do that?

Cheers,

Scott.

[Scott Dunkley]

as you can tell by now, i dont do much with Windows or PC's.......how do I check if it is running LPD/LPR, on win95/NT4.0/win2000 ?

ooooohhhhh its sooo much easier on UNIX!!!!!!!!!

S.

[Bill Hassell]

For a remote printer, the name of the remote queue is the same for Unix as it would be for Windows. In your Windows system, each printer has a name, like lj2 or dj600bay3 or whatever. This is the name by which your remote PC knows this printer.

Yes, you must install and configure the LPR/LPD print services in Windows before anything will work. And ALWAYS specify the BSD option. It limits the printer ID number to 3 digits, a requirement for BSD style print servers (and Windows is based on a BSD model).

[Scott Dunkley]

right I have sussed it out, you need 3rd party software for Win95/98 and you need to install TCP/IP print services for Win2000/NT. Havnt got either so will be sorting that out that hopefully should resolve my issue.

Thanks for your help,

Scott.

[bert ponet_2]

Hi Scott,
You can use microsoft client shared printers when you have Samba ( or CIFS 9000) installed on your server.
In that case you do not need any additional LPR/LPD software for your clients. You just have to enable File and Print Sharing on the pc's.
Once samba is installed on your unix you can verify the availibility of a printer share with
#smbclient -L pcname
If there is a printer share it will be displayed.
Next you can add the printer with
#lpadmin -punixprintername -v -i/opt/samba/smbprint

The lp service will call the smbprint script.
This script contains the following line to send the printjob to the windows client
cat $FILE | smbclient $service -P
The smbprint.sysv interface script is located somewhere under the samba directory.

Regards