A.P. Lawrence

Creating classes for lpd printing

If this isn't exactly what you wanted, please try our Search (there's a LOT of techy and non-techy stuff here about Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and just computers in general!):

Subject: Re: On pooling of printers
Message-ID: <371703D5.431EC8BC@aplawrence.com>
References: <slrn7hattd.gth.mansaxel@bartlet.df.lth.se> <FA8o23.1A54@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS> <slrn7hcp6n.aet.mansaxel@bartlet.df.lth.se>

SCO systems have a mix of System V and LPD printing. The two aren't happily joined, and earlier SCO versions particularly lacked the ability to put any scripts or filters into LPD printers. However, having Sys V printing available (scripts in /usr/spool/lp/admins/lp/interfaces) meant you could get this by front-ending the LPD printer with a Sys V virtual printer.

You can do anything you need to do using the concept of virtual printers- a local printer that redirects itself elsewhere. SCO's Sys V side supported printer classes, but the LPD side did not. Set up several of these, put them in a class, and you have what you want. Another advantage of this for LPD printers is that you get to use any interface script you want.

I think the easiest and most maintainable way to do virtuals is to follow the same sort of scheme the hpnp uses but modify it with the "network" model: use an upper level interface like the one in /usr/lib/hpnp/model that filters output through a standard interface in interfaces/model.orig, but have it pickup the remote that it finally pipes to from /usr/spool/lp/remote like the network model does.

See What is a virtual printer?

Psst - Wanna work for yourself?

Comments


Add your comments

Why no "Digg this!" etc.?

Enter your email address for automatic notification of new posts here
(be sure to whitelist 'feedburner.com' if you use spam filtering)

/Bofcusm/35.html copyright 1997-2004 (various authors) All Rights Reserved

Have you tried Searching this site?

Unix/Linux/Mac OS X support by phone, email or on-site: Support Rates

This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more. We appreciate comments and article submissions.

Publishing your articles here