System Administration Guide: Printing

Selecting the Server-To-Printer Network Printing Protocol

Network-attached printers often support more than one method of communicating with a print service. The most common method of communicating with the print service is through a raw TCP connection to a well-known port on the device. Other methods of communication include the RFC-1179 and IPP network protocols. You can select the server-to-printer communication protocol when adding a new print queue in one of following ways:

When determining which protocol to use for server-to-printer communication, consult the vendor printer documentation for more specific information. Documentation includes information such as TCP port numbers, RFC-1179 printer names, and the IPP printer URIs that are supported by the device. In most instances, a raw TCP socket communication is likely to provide the most reliable results.

Also, note that due to differences between printing services on UNIX and Windows platforms, Windows hosted printers should be configured as network-attached printers and administered as such. These types of printers require the creation of a print queue if you are using them on a Oracle Solaris system. These printers might also use the SMB protocol for server-to-printer communication. For more information about the SMB protocol, see Description of the SMB Protocol.

For more information about setting up printers and configuring print queues, see Setting Up Printers by Using Solaris Print Manager (Task Map) and Setting Up Printers by Using LP Print Commands (Task Map).