A.P. Lawrence

sco number of printers

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From: Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Subject: Re: How many printers are supported?
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 22:11:32 -0800 References: <tao4t4e0kcttde@corp.supernews.com>

On Sun, 11 Mar 2001 19:15:18 -0500, "Clifford" <clifford@speakeasy.org>
wrote:

>We're having a debate about whether to bypass the spooler and write directly
>to the devices because the admin says that the spooler can't handle 75
>printers.  We're running SCO open server?

Run:
        customquery listpaches | head -1
for the exact version and updates.  

OSR5 3.2v5.0.0 would barf at 16 configured printers.  All version of OSR5
take somewhat less than forever to time out from a non-available LPD
configured printer when displaying lpstat results.  If you happen to be
using 3.2v5.0.6, see:
    http://www.caldera.com/support/docs/:457/OSr506/latenews.html
for any printing related issues that might affect your arrangment.

>Is it wise to bypass the spooler and have the applications write directly to
>the devices?

Lone-Tar Backup and Disaster Recovery
for Linux and Unix

No, but I do it often for serial port cash register printers.  The 1-2
second delay for the print spooler to start printing is fatal on a high
traffic cash register.  Printing directly to a serial port (or IP socket)
starts much faster than going through the spooler.

>Is Unix robust enough to handle this many printers?

Yes.

>Is there a limit to the
>number of print devices in unix?

I don't think so.  I are not a programmist and do not have access to the
source code.

You may want to disclose:
-  If these 75 printers are attached to 75 assorted serial ports.
-  Whether said serial ports are directly attached to the OSR5 server
   or are located on remote terminal/print servers.
-  If there are any network print servers involved.

If there are network print servers, and your admin want to shovel print
jobs directly to the print servers, I suggest "netcat".  See:
        http://www.cruzio.com/~jeffl/sco/lp/
        http://www.tkrh.demon.co.uk/netcat.html
        /SCOFAQ/scotec7.html#getnetcat

Email from a VLC (very large company) indicated that they were
successfully using netcat for printing to something like 170 print
servers from about 15 OSR5 and Linux servers.  I've had other comments
about large systems, but I don't recall the numbers.  Note that netcat
simply re-directs the output to an IP socket, but uses the stock SCO
print spooler.  Since lpstat is only run for locally configured printers,
it runs fast.  It's the HPNP and LPD printers that slow down lpstat and
rlpstat.

-- 
Jeff Liebermann   jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
150 Felker St #D  Santa Cruz CA  95060
831-421-6491 pager   831-429-1240 fax
http://www.cruzio.com/~jeffl/sco/   SCO stuff

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