Printer Software distribution
This page is mainly for host administrators. It will guide you how to connect
your machine to DESY printing system.
This page will cover configuring
General information on how to use the DESY printing
service
The DESY printing service is hosted on the UNIX spooling host 'spool-lpr',
which can be reached by using either the LPR protocol (on port 515) or using
the SMB protocol. Please use our website
http://www-it.desy.de/systems/services/printing/printer.html
to get the informations you need to configure the queues on your operating
system. Usually the the name of the printserver and the name of the queue
is sufficiant. Additional informations, like the vendor type and the capabilities
of the printengine as well as the location where the printer can be found
are on the same site.
Using these informations you should be able to use the printing service
with any of the many LPR implementations under the usual OS's like MAC, WINDOWS,
LINUX, BSD etc. You will be able to submit printjobs from inside the DESY
network; for querying the queues and removing jobs from the queues you need
an implementation of the advanced LPRng protocol though. For details, have
a look below or at http://www.lprng.com.
A simple lightweight installation on UNIX hosts
LPRng offers the opportunity to run without a daemon installed by connecting
the printserver directly, all you need are the compiled binaries for your
platform and two configuration files. The tar files contain all you need
and a short description what to do, simply untar them in your /tmp directory
and copy them to their destinations following the README file. Get the actual
printcap here, copy it to the described destination:
done !!!
IRIX 6.5 binaries
LINUX binaries (Kernel
2.2.16 or higher, Glibc 2.1.2 or higher)
HP-UX 10 binaries
SOLARIS 5.7 binaries
SOLARIS 5.8 binaries
LPRng is today part of nearly any LINUX distribution, though apart from
'slackware' the default printspooler is still the old BSD-style. You might
use any RFC1179 compliant daemon to communicate with the central printservers
at DESY as long as you have a valid DNS entry. To gain full control over
your printjobs (see the queue and beeing able to remove your job) you have
to use the LPRng binaries. You don't need to be a LINUX-guru to install
the LPRng spooling system, all you nedd is a little bit of common sense and
good luck ;-)
todo:
remove BSD printing
Using the RedHatPackageManager:
"rpm -e --nodeps lprold"
should remove the old printing system
install LPRng printing
the LPRng package is today part of all LINUX distribution. Search on your
install medium for the package called "lprng*.rpm" and install it
if you want to use the DESY install server:
mount the repository with your distribution (e.g. suse-6.4):
"mount linux:/distro/suse-6.4 /mnt"
look for the LPRng package (you need the complete name of the package) and
install it with the RPM:
"cd /mnt/full-names/i386/"
"rpm -i lprng-3.6.13-6.i386.rpm"
"umount /mnt"
install DESY printcap
the actual DESY printcap can be downloaded from the web:
printcap
the sample printcap on your machine usually resides under /etc/printcap
simply replace it, if you have additional local printers simply 'cut&paste'
them into the DESY printcap or vice versa...
edit the lpd.conf file
we are lazy, so we did not mention any spooldirectory information in the printcap,
that's why you have to put it in the global lpd.conf file if you want local
spooling
search the file "lpd.conf" (usually in /etc) and open it with your favorite
editor
if you want to disable local spooling (jobs get directly send to the DESY
printserver) search for the entry:
"force_localhost"
and change it to:
"force_localhost@"
if you like local spooling enter the global spooldirectory entry if it not
present:
"sd=/var/spool/lpd/%P"
restart lpd daemon
to have the lpd daemon recognize your new printcap it has to be restarted:
"/usr/sbin/lpc reread"
if you get a message concerning your lpd daemon, not running, simply start
it by hand:
"/usr/sbin/lpd"
create spooldirectories
LPRng offers a tool that comes along with the now installed package that
can do this job for you:
"/usr/sbin/checkpc -a -f printcap
you might want to use it as a cronjob as well as we do it on the maintained
clients:
[x4u1] ~lp $ cat ~lp/crontab.lp
# Printing maintenance and update
#truncate log files ("-t 1K")
#do not create accounting files ("-a")
#removes jobs older than three days ("-A3 -r")
#checks and creates new spooldirectories ("-f printcap)
#output is send to /dev/null (checkpc is quite noisy)
# C. Beyer 15-02-00
#
44 7,9,12,14 * * 1-5 sbin/checkpc -a -t 1K -A3 -r -f printcap >/dev/null
2>&1
updates
you can replace the existing printcap on your system and do the "lpc reread"
to have it recognized for updates...