Setting a Remote Printer on HP−UX

The basic concept of remote System V printing is the same as with BSD: the clientserver model and the required local setting of printers on the server side remain the same. However, setting remote printers on the client side is different, and again the powerful lpadmin command is used. Three arguments are required to appropriately set a remote printer: a printer name on the client side, a print server a remote machine name, and a remote printer name the name of a local printer on the server side. The lpadmin command provides corresponding options for these arguments. Unfortunately, the use of the command is not uniform among System V flavors — different lpadmin options are available for this purpose. We will consider two of them: Solaris 2.x and the HP−UX flavor. 10.3.2.3.1 Setting a Remote Printer on Solaris 2.x lpadmin −p printer−name −s remsystem−nameremprinter−name where printer−name Name selected to designate the remote printer remsystem−name Name of the remote system that should provide printing in versions up to Solaris 2.6, must be listed in the etclpSystems file remprinter−name Local name of the printer on the remote system The etclpSystems file contains a list table of all associated remote systems and printers. The lpsystem command is available to update the file. We will discuss this issue later in more detail, as a part of cross−platform printing.

10.3.2.3.2 Setting a Remote Printer on HP−UX

The HP−UX platform is consistent regarding this issue within releases HP−UX 9.0x, HP−UX 10.xx, and HP−UX 11.xx. lpadmin −p printer−name −orm remsystem−name −orp remprinter−name where printer−name Name selected to designate the remote printer remsystem−name Name of the remote system that should provide printing remprinter−name Local name of the printer on the remote system The HP−UX approach is more flexible; it enables several printing issues besides a remote printer to be set, like specifying the commands to cancel requests to remote printers and to obtain the status of requests to remote printers. Specifying the corresponding cancel and status models provides these functions, so when the cancel and lpstat commands for remote printers are used, they refer to defined models. The template models are supplied with the LP software residing on the usrspoollpcmodel and usrspoollpsmodel directories, and they should be sufficient for most implementations. The corresponding lpadmin options to set remote cancel and status models are: lpadmin −ocm rcmodel rcmodel is the remote cancel model lpadmin −osm rsmodel rsmodel is the remote status model Let us see what the template cancel and status models look like: 244 total 2 −r−−r−−r−− 1 bin bin 107 Dec 2 1993 rcmodel cat usrspoollpcmodelrcmodel binsh Revision: 66.1 This model is for remote cancel operation. usrlibrcancel ls −l usrspoollpsmodel total 2 −r−−r−−r−− 1 bin bin 107 Dec 2 1993 rsmodel cat usrspoollpsmodelrsmodel binsh Revision: 66.1 This model is for remote status operation. usrlibrlpstat Both models are scripts and rely on special commands rcancel and rlpstat provided by HP−UX to deal with remote printers. If you execute the usual printing−related commands for remote printers: cancel −p remprinter print−requests or lpstat −p remprinter instead of the expected cancel and lpstat commands, the corresponding rcancel and rlpstat commands will be executed.

10.4 UNIX Cross−Platform Printer Spooling

We have discussed BSD and System V printing subsystems in great detail; however, besides the fact that they are very different from one another, they are also mutually noncompatible. Incompatibility can be a serious obstacle in providing the unique print service on a multiplatform environment. UNIX vendors treat this problem differently if they do at all; some UNIX flavors include both versions of printer spooling subsystems as standard parts of the UNIX distribution, while others provide specific filters, programs, commands, or utilities to bridge two subsystems. We will discuss a few cases.

10.4.1 BSD and AIX Cross−Printing

AIX supports BSD−like remote printing; the BSD−like daemon lpd is running on the system and monitoring port 515 for incoming remote print requests. In a sense, AIX supports the BSD printer spooling subsystem; the etchosts.lpd or etchosts.equiv files define trusted systems from which remote printing is allowed. However, this is not sufficient for successful cross−printing; incoming print jobs must be additionally filtered as appropriate. Special BSD filters exist for this purpose. ls −l usrliblpd total 5504 ..... 245