Of course Unix/Linux systems know how to print to these. SCO called them "Remote" printers, but LPD (RFC1179) is what they meant (though uncheck the "extended protocol" unless the printer is on another SCO box).
In the absence of a printer config tool, you can easily add lpd printers to /etc/printcap - there's lots of information here about that.
Even Windows can print to LPD, but you have to install "Other Network File and Print Services" from "Add/Remove Windows Components". Windows can also be an LPD server; you need "Print Services For Unix" to get that.
HP printers, Netgear print servers and others often use direct socket printing. To print, you simply send data to a specific network port: 9100 for HP, 9101 for the second printer on a HP multiport print server, 4010 for Netgear and so on. There's no protocol, headers, trailers - whatever you send, the printer gets.
With CUPS, you can do this right from the command line:
sudo lpadmin -p laserjet6L -E -v socket://10.1.36.221:4010 -m laserjet
In that case, we want to call our printer "laserjet6L" and it lives at 10.1.36.221 on port 4010 (that's a Netgear Printserver).
You can do the same thing on OS X if it fails to find your printer by itself.
If your printer does LPD, you set it up as a Remote Printer.
If it does not, see the example of using "netcat" at How do I install a HP Network Printer or Print Server?. You'll need to know its IP address and /Jeffl/portnumbers.html.
Windows has a very strange setup for this. You'd logically think that you'd choose "Network Printer", but no, you need to choose "Local" and then create a new port, choosing TCP/IP as the port type. If this is a port 9100 printer (HP), that's "Generic"; otherwise you choose the port in the advanced configuration.
You can send data straight to any port printer:
#!/usr/bin/perl use IO::Socket; $host=shift @ARGV; $port=shift @ARGV; $socket=IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=> $host, PeerPort=> $port, Proto=> 'tcp', Type=> SOCK_STREAM) or die "Can't talk to $host at $port"; while (<>) { print $socket $_; } close $socket;
On Linux/Unix/OS X, you could also use "nc" for the same purpose. "cat yourfile | netcat printer_ip_address 9100", for example.
For old SCO, see Where do I get "netcat" and how do I use it?
Got something to add? Send me email.
More Articles by Anthony Lawrence © 2010-06-23 Anthony Lawrence
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me. (Steve Jobs)
Tue Sep 8 20:23:20 2009: 6875 TonyLawrence
I did a bit of updating on this today. I intend to go through all the old FAQ material and update it where appropriate. Please drop a comment if I made a mistake or missed anything.
Wed Jun 23 10:58:51 2010: 8736 antonius
I wonder if one could setup cups to act like a virtual spooler that way to generate ps files into a folder ?
Wed Jun 23 12:16:17 2010: 8737 TonyLawrence
Yes, you can. See (link) and be sure to read the comments too.
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How do I set up a network printer or print server? Copyright © September 2009 Tony Lawrence
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