print spooling issues

[Clay Guthery]

I'm basically giving myself a personal crash course in NT Domain enviroment print serving via samba and I have run into a problem with linux improperly/not queuing print jobs. Setup is as follows:

RH 6.2 with samba 2.0.7 and lpr .50-4. Printer is an HP iii (also tried this
on an hp IV and 4000 TN), the drivers i'm using in linux are just the standard hp laserjet III delta and the laserjet iv dithered (although I've noticed it doesn't really make a difference in what driver you actually use on the print server). The HP III is hooked up to a HP Jet Direct EX Plus
configured with a static IP. I have the printer configured as a remote unix server at it's IP and RAW as the printer setting. This is then shared via the printcap file and samba and is shared out on our NT domain. I can install this printer in my Win98 box using a Windows HP laser jet III D
driver and print to the printer via the linux server. The only problem is the queuing.. I see the print job show up in the print queue on the server under /var/spool/lpd/printer with the standard name formatting (cryptic if you ask me).. it deletes it when the print job is done and everything prints fine.. only problem is, the Windows machine cannot print anything else until this print job is basically done. I can't for example print a 50 page word document, flip to excel and immedietly print a 10 page spreadsheet.. it
locks the system up until the spooling (or something else I have no clue) is finished.. I have 'spool print documents' enabled on the Windows computer and 'start printing immedietly' checked as well.. any pointers or ideas would be greatly appreciated as this really the only problem that is keeping
this server from becoming a viable print serving solution within our company. My guess is it has something to do with my queue attaching to the queue of the HP jet direct, but I'm really not sure how it works.. Should I be using the option 'direct to port printer' instead of remote Unix (lpd) Queue? (i've tried to configure it that way and haven't gotten it working). You can find the single entry from my printcap file attached below.

Clay Guthery
dguthery@mail.bokf.com

p.s. anyone know where I can get more printer drivers for Red Hat besides the
default ones that come with 6.2? ie. for the 4000 TN and newer models.

-----------------------------
PRINTCAP
##PRINTTOOL3## REMOTE ljet3d 300x300 letter {} LaserJet3d Default {}

printer35|12 tech:rp=raw:sd=/var/spool/lpd/printer35:sh:rm=10.10.18.35:if=/var/spool/lpd/printer35/filter:

[Albert E. Whale, CISSP]

Clay,

You should be able to get Linux to Directly speak to the HP JetDirect Card, and Faily that have Linux print to the Remote Queue on the HP Server. If this works, then we need a better JetDIrect Printing HowTO Document.

Here's a excellent resource for Linux Printing:

http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/pht/printer_list.cgi

I would have Windose print to the Queue on the Linux on HP Server. Either is multi-tasking and much more reliable.

As far as your request for information on Current Drivers, here's your answer. The Drivers are available from a Utility called Ghpstscript. All of the Major Distributions (including RedHat), provide an older out of date release of the software and drivers for Ghostscript. A current release is available at
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/aladdin/index.html

Yes, it is freeware as well.

Hope that helps.

[Albert E. Whale, CISSP]

Clay,

Were you able to view the FAQ and HOWTO's on the Web?

Did this help you out?

[Clay Guthery]

Yes I checked out webpage and FAQ, it was interesting reading, but didn't speak much about printserving in the manner I'm interested in. I have yet to find a really decent printSERVING faq.. =/ I'm really interested in getting this working using lpd.. I know the solution to my little problem is out there, I just haven't been able to find it.. I have found alternatives (which i have tested minimally, but I'm so close to where I need to be with lpd.)

[Albert E. Whale, CISSP]

Clay,

Let's briefly review this problem. Is this a SAMBA (Windows NT) printing issue?

Are we createing a Printer Queue on Linux, HP-UX or NT?

How do you wish to print?

[Clay Guthery]

As I stated very detailed above, the print server is a Red Hat Linux machine, I'm printing from Windows (used win2k, 98, and NT) and the spooling error I believe is the result between the hp jet direct and the lpd spooling.. and I still have not been able to get the linux box to print directly to a tcp port on the jet direct, I tried 515 and 9100 with no luck.

[Tyrone Faciane]

The problem you're describing sounds exactly like the one described in the SMB Howto under the "Printing to Windows" section.

The Howto explains excellently how to get Linux-to-Windows and Windows-to-Linux print services working, but another individual adds (I'm going from memory-- check the howto).

In creating the printcap file the line:
lp=/dev/null
or
lp=/dev/lp0... or whatever
he adds, accessing any of those devices directly causes an "exclusive lock" on that device, thus stopping it from spooling additional jobs while a job is printing.

His solution is to create a ficticious device with the command:

touch /dev/hp3d # for example.

Then you would replace the line in your printcap:
lp=/dev/null or lp=/dev/lp0 (or whatever) with:
lp=/dev/hp3d.

I haven't had this problem specifically, but it sounds exactly like what's described in the Howto. I hope this helps.

Tyrone