This section provides an overview of planning for printing in the Solaris environment that includes:
Setting definitions for printers such a printer name, printer description, printer port
Selecting a printer type and file content type
Setting up fault notification and a default printer destination
Determining whether you want to print banner pages or limit user access to a printer
Setting up printer classes and fault recovery
Establishing definitions for the printers on your network is an ongoing task that lets you provide a more effective print environment for users. For example, you can assign parameters for all your site's printers to help users find where a printer is located, or you can define a class of printers to provide the fastest turnaround for print requests.
The lpadmin command lets you set all of the print definitions, while Solaris Print Manager lets you set only some of them when you install or modify a printer. The following table lists the print definitions and shows whether you can assign the definition with Solaris Print Manager.
Table 3–1 Print Definitions Set With Solaris Print Manager
Print Definition |
Can You Set It With Solaris Print Manager? |
---|---|
Yes |
|
Yes |
|
Yes |
|
Yes |
|
Yes, but with less functionality than the lpadmin command |
|
Yes, but with less functionality than the lpadmin command |
|
Yes |
|
Yes, but with less functionality than the lpadmin command |
|
Yes, but with less functionality than the lpadmin command |
|
No |
|
No |
When adding a printer to a system, you specify a printer name for the printer. A printer name must be:
Unique among all printers within the bounds of an administrative domain
A maximum of 14 alphanumeric characters, which can include dashes and underscores
Easy to remember and can identify the type of printer, its location, or the print server name
Establish a naming convention that works for your site. For example, if you have different types of printers on the network, including the printer type as part of the printer name can help users choose an appropriate printer. For instance, you could identify PostScriptTM printers with the letters PS. If, however, all of the printers at your site are PostScript printers, you would not need to include the initials PS as part of the printer name.
You can assign a description to a printer by using the lpadmin -D command or Solaris Print Manager. The printer's description should contain information to help users identify the printer. You might include the room number where the printer is located, the type of printer, the manufacturer, or the name of the person to call if there are printing problems.
Users can look at a printer description by using the following command:
$ lpstat -D -p printer-name |
When you install a printer or later change its setup, you can specify the device, or the printer port, to which the printer is connected, by using Solaris Print Manager or the lpadmin -p printer-name -v device-name command.
Most systems have two serial ports and a parallel port or USB ports. Unless you add ports, you cannot directly connect more than two serial printers and a parallel or two USB printers to one system.
You can select the following printer port types with Solaris Print Manager. These options give you as much flexibility as the lpadmin command.
Printer Port Type |
Corresponding Device Name Options |
---|---|
Serial |
/dev/term/a |
Serial |
/dev/term/b |
Parallel |
/dev/printers/0 —> /dev/ecpp0 |
USB |
/dev/printers/[1–9] |
Specify any port name that the print server recognizes |
Other |
The LP print service initializes the printer port using the settings from the standard printer interface program. For more information about printer interface programs, see Managing Print Filters. If you have a parallel printer or a serial printer for which the default settings do not work, see Adjusting Printer Port Characteristics for information about customizing the port settings.
If you use multiple ports on an IA based system, only the first port is enabled by default. The second and any subsequent ports are disabled by default. To use more than one port, you must manually edit the device driver port configuration file for each additional asy (serial) port or lp (parallel) port. The pathnames for the IA port configuration files are:
/platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/asy.conf
/platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/lp.conf
The printer type is a generic name for a type of printer. It identifies the terminfo database entry that contains various control sequences for the printer. By convention, printer type is usually derived from the manufacturer's model name. For example, the printer type name for the DECwriterTM printer is decwriter. However, the common printer type PS does not follow this convention. PS is used as the printer type for many models of PostScriptTM printers, such as Apple LaserWriter®I and Apple LaserWriterII printers.
You can specify the printer type by using the lpadmin -T command or Solaris Print Manager.
Solaris Print Manager lets you select a printer type from a menu or choose Other and specify any printer type in the terminfo database. This provides you as much capability as the lpadmin command.
Information about each printer type is stored in the terminfo database (/usr/share/lib/terminfo). This information includes the printer capabilities and initialization control data. The printer you install must correspond to an entry in the terminfo database.
$ pwd /usr/share/lib/terminfo $ ls 1 3 5 7 9 B H P a c e g i k m o q s u w y 2 4 6 8 A G M S b d f h j l n p r t v x z $ |
Each subdirectory contains compiled database entries for terminals or printers. The entries are organized by the first letter of the printer or terminal type. For example, if you have an Epson® printer, look in the /usr/share/lib/terminfo/e directory to find your particular model of Epson printer.
$ cd /usr/share/lib/terminfo/e $ ls emots ep2500+high ep48 ergo4000 exidy2500 env230 ep2500+low epson2500 esprit envision230 ep40 epson2500-80 ethernet ep2500+basic ep4000 epson2500-hi ex3000 ep2500+color ep4080 epson2500-hi80 exidy $ |
The entries for Epson printers are included in the preceding example.
If you have a NEC® printer, look in the /usr/share/lib/terminfo/n directory for your NEC printer model.
$ cd /usr/share/lib/terminfo/n $ ls ncr7900 ncr7900iv netronics network nuc ncr7900-na ncr7901 netty netx nucterm ncr7900i nec netty-Tabs newhp ncr7900i-na net netty-vi newhpkeyboard $ |
The entry in this directory for NEC is included in the preceding example.
For a local PostScript printer, use a printer type of either PostScript (PS) or Reverse PostScript (PSR). If your printer supports PostScript, choose PS or PSR even if the specific printer type is listed in the terminfo database.
If your PostScript printer prints pages face up, documents appear to be printed backwards—the first page is at the bottom of the stack and the last page is on the top. If you specify the printer's type as PSR, the LP print service reverses the order of the pages before sending them to the printer. The last page is printed first, and the pages are stacked in forward order. However, the LP print service can reliably change the page order only for PostScript files that conform to the Adobe® Document Structuring Conventions in Appendix C of the PostScript Language Reference Manual (written by Adobe Systems Incorporated, and published by Addison-Wesley, 1990).
If a printer can emulate more than one kind of printer, you can assign it several types by using the lpadmin -T command. If you specify more than one printer type, the LP print service uses the type that is appropriate for each print request.
You might not find the printer type in the appropriate terminfo directory. The type of printer is not necessarily linked to the manufacturer's name on the printer. For example, for any type of PostScript printer, you can use the PS or PSR entry (found in the /usr/share/lib/terminfo/P directory) instead of an entry specific to manufacturer or product names.
If you have an unusual type of printer, you might need to try different entries before you can determine whether a particular terminfo entry works for your model of printer. If possible, find an entry in the terminfo database that works for your printer. It will be much easier than trying to create an entry. If you have to create your own entry, Adding a terminfo Entry for an Unsupported Printer contains some useful tips.
Print filters convert the content type of a file to a content type that is acceptable to the destination printer. The file content type tells the LP print service the type of file contents that can be printed directly, without filtering. To print without filtering, the necessary fonts must also be available in the printer. (You must set up and use filtering for other types of files.)
You can specify the file content type for a printer by using the lpadmin -I command or Solaris Print Manager. With Solaris Print Manager, you can select a file content type from a menu. Not all available file content types are listed on the menu. You must use the lpadmin command to specify file content types that are not included on the Solaris Print Manager menu.
Most printers can print the following types of files directly:
When submitting a file for printing, the user can indicate the content type of the file (lp -T content-type). If no file content type is supplied when the request is submitted, the LP server looks at the first file in the request to determine the content type. If the file begins with ^D%! or %!, the request is considered to contain PostScriptTM data. Otherwise, the request is assumed to contain simple (ASCII) text. The LP print service uses the file content type to determine which filters to use to convert the file contents into a type the printer can handle.
Solaris Print Manager provides a list of file content types from which you can choose when you install or modify a local printer. The choices are translated to the names that the LP print service uses. The following table describes the file content types you can choose with Solaris Print Manager.
Table 3–2 Choosing File Content Type With Solaris Print Manager
File Contents Choice |
LP Print Service Name |
Description |
---|---|---|
PostScript |
postscript |
PostScript files do not require filtering. |
ASCII |
simple |
ASCII files do not require filtering. |
Both PostScript and ASCII |
simple, postscript |
PostScript files and ASCII files do not require filtering. |
None |
"" |
All files require filtering, except those matching the printer's type. |
Any |
any |
No filtering required. If the printer cannot handle a file content type directly, the file will not be printed. |
Choose the file content type that best matches the printer's capabilities. PostScript (which means filtering is not needed for PostScript files) is the default choice in Solaris Print Manager and is probably correct most of the time.
This section provides the printer type and file content type for the printers most commonly used with Solaris software. Although not shown, many of these printers can also directly print files with simple content type.
If you have a PostScript printer, use a printer type of PS or PSR and a content type of postscript. PSR reverses the pagination and prints the banner page last.
The following table lists additional non-PostScript printers and shows the printer type to use for configuring each printer. For all these printers, the file content type is simple.
Sun Microsystems does not supply filtering software for the printers listed in the following table, among others. However, you can use unsupported printers if you supply filtering or if the printer can directly print the file content type. If you have questions about any printer for which Sun Microsystems does not supply filters, contact the printer manufacturer.
Printer |
Printer Type |
---|---|
Daisy |
daisy |
Datagraphix |
datagraphix |
DEC LA100 |
la100 |
DEC LN03 |
ln03 |
DECwriter |
decwriter |
Diablo |
diablo |
|
diablo-m8 |
Epson 2500 variations |
epson2500 |
|
epson2500-80 |
|
epson2500-hi |
|
epson2500-hi80 |
Hewlett-Packard HPCL printer |
hplaser |
IBM Proprinter |
ibmproprinter |
If you want to set up a printer that is not in the terminfo database, see How to Add a terminfo Entry for an Unsupported Printer.