Using Netcat for a simple lpr client

Editor's note:

Are you looking for FAQ: what is netcat and how do I use it?

Some print servers simply print whatever data is presented to them. For example, the HP Jet Direct and many other print servers work that way. See /SCOFAQ/scotec7.html#getnetcat for more on that.

LPD style printers require more of a protocol. Carsten Hammer has presented a simple shell script that provides that protocol.

The netcat Carsten uses in this script is the Linux version that has many more features than the simple SCO binary referred to above, but either could be used with this script- just leave out the flags that aren't used if you have the simpler version.


If you like you can even use a simple shell/awk-script to build a lpr like client arount netcat.

It looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
# Simple pseude lpr-like client for transmission of arbitrary controlfile
# parameters
# Carsten Hammer <Hammer.Carsten@oce.de>, 2002
#set -x
# Programmname zielhost queuename
# Counter maintained in /tmp/nr

echo "Host:" $1
echo "Queue:" $2
echo "Dateiname:" $3

Size=`ls -lL $3|tr -s ' '|cut -d' ' -f5`
echo "Dateigr�sse:" $Size

# netcat
NC=/usr/local/bin/nc

awkscript="BEGIN {
n=sprintf(\"%03d\",ARGV[2] +0);
size=sprintf(\"%d\",ARGV[3] +0);
queuename=ARGV[1]
c=c \"HSYSM\n\"
c=c \"PSAF0006\n\"
c=c \"fdfA\"n\"SYSM\n\"
c=c \"UdfA\"n\"SYSM\n\"
c=c \"NDEFSYSM.SAF0006.SAF00066.JOB07513.D0000103.?\n\"
c=c \"-odatat=l\n\"
c=c \"-ofileformat=record\n\"
c=c \"-occ=yes\n\"
c=c \"-oro=e\n\"
c=c \"-occtype=a\n\"
c=c \"-ochars=315A\n\"
c=c \"-ocop=001\n\"
c=c \"-ous=SAF0006\n\"
c=c \"-ono=DEFSYSM\n\"
c=c \"-opr=AUGUST\n\"
c=c \"-opa=forms=STD,class=8,destination=PWSCHU01\n\"

clen=sprintf(\"%04d\",length(c))
ca=ca\"\002\"queuename\"\n\"
ca=ca\"\002\"clen\" cfA\"n\"SYSM\n\"
e= \"+\"
da=da \"\003\"size\" dfA\"n\"SYSM\n\"
e= \"+\"
printf ca
printf c
printf e
printf da
}"

if [ ! -f "/tmp/nr" ] ; then echo "1" >/tmp/nr; fi
awk '{ print $1+1 }' /tmp/nr.bak;mv /tmp/nr.bak /tmp/nr
{ awk "$awkscript" "$2" "`cat /tmp/nr`" "$Size"|tr '+' '\000';cat $3;printf
'\000';}|\
$NC -v -v  -w 2 -o bla.log $1 515


# print any waiting jobs
#printf "\001blubb\n" | $NC -v localhost 515
# send queue state (short)
#printf "\003blubb\n" | $NC -v localhost 515
# send queue state (long)
#printf "\004blubb\n" | $NC -v localhost 515
#printf "\004oce\n" | $NC -v localhost 515


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---October 24, 2004



Kerio Samepage

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