Lpd Printing From Bsd Unix And Linux - Black Box 37687 User Manual

LPD Printing from BSD Unix and Linux

This section should give you some idea of how to set-up printing via LPD on a Unix host.
However, this will not be universally true as different versions of Unix have different
configuration requirements. You may also wish to consult your Operating System
documentation before attempting to add LPD.
The Unix host should have a printer database, for BSD and Linux type systems this will be
the file /etc/printcap and there should be an entry within this file for the server's LPD port that
looks something like the following:
#term_serv LPD Printer on serial port 16
Laser1|IOLAN LPD printer 16:\
:rp=LPD_printer:rm=term_serv:lp=:sf:\
:sd=/usr/spool/LPD/LPD_printer:\
:lf=/usr/spool/LPD/term_serv16/log:
Printing could then be accomplished using the following command:
lpr –PLaser1 <file>
A limitation of printing with LPD on the terminal server is that no formatting of text (apart from
the + operation) can be carried out by the terminal server firmware. This is due to the lack of
a spooler utility in the terminal server and the data being forwarded directly to the serial port.
To overcome this the local host must perform all of the necessary changes and then send
these to the terminal server. Defining a printer queue as in the previous examples can do
this.
If filtering or formatting is required then a local linking print queue needs to be created. This
would be something like the following:
# Lcl q to link to term_serv LPD Printer on port 16
link-Laser1| IOLAN LPD Printer 16:\
:lp=/dev/null:sf:sd=/usr/spool/LPD/Laser1:\
:lf=/usr/spool/LPD/LPD_printer/log:\
:of=/etc/IOLAN/link-Laser1:
The shell script output file link-Laser1 has the contents:
#!/bin/sh
lpr –PLaser1
Terminal Server User Guide
Using LPD
Page 103
Chapter 8 Printing