System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration

Setting Up Printing (Task Map)

Task 

Description 

For Instructions 

1. Add New Attached Printer 

Using Solaris Print Manager – After you physically attach the printer to a system, make the printer available for printing.  

How to Add a New Attached Printer With Solaris Print Manager

2. Add Access to a Printer 

Using Solaris Print Manager – Add printer access on the print client. 

How to Add Printer Access With Solaris Print Manager

3. (Optional) Set Up a .printers File

Use a $HOME/.printers file so that users can establish their own custom printer aliases.

How to Set Up a .printers File

4. Add a New Network Printer 

Using Printer Vendor Supplied Tools – After you physically connect the printer to the network, use vendor-supplied software to configure the network printer.  

How to Add a Network Printer With Printer Vendor Supplied Tools

 

Using LP Commands – After you physically connect the printer to the network, configure the network printer.  

How to Add A Network Printer With LP Commands

5. (Optional) Turn Off Banner Pages 

You can turn off banner pages so they are never printed. 

How to Turn Off Banner Pages

6. (Optional) Set Up Fault Alerts  

You can set up more specific fault alerts for the printer than Solaris Print Manager provides.  

How to Set Fault Alerts for a Printer

7. (Optional) Set Up Fault Recovery 

You can set up how a printer should recover after it faults.

How to Set Printer Fault Recovery

8. (Optional) Limit Access to the Printer  

Solaris Print Manager enables you to set up an allow list, but if you want to limit a few users' access to the printer, you might want to set up a deny list.  

How to Limit User Access to a Printer

Setting Up Printing With Solaris Print Manager

Solaris Print Manager is a Java-based graphical user interface that enables you to manage local and remote printer configuration. This tool can be used in the following name service environments: LDAP, NIS, NIS+, NIS+ with Federated Naming Service (xfn), and files. You must be logged in as superuser to use this tool.

You can use Solaris Print Manager to set up print servers (New Attached Printer) and print clients (Add Access to Printer). A local or attached printer is one which is physically cabled to the print server. A network printer is physically attached to the network. Adding access to a printer, or adding remote access, is the process of giving print clients (all those machines which are not the server) access to the printer.

Setting Up a Printer With Solaris Print Manager

The following table describes each printer attribute to help you determine the information needed to set up a printer with Solaris Print Manager.

Printer Attribute 

Description 

Example 

Default Setting 

Required or Optional? 

Printer Name 

Name of printer 

laser1

N/A 

Required to install an attached or network printer and to add access to a printer 

Printer server 

Name of printer server 

venus

The local system 

Required to install an attached or network printer and to add access to a printer 

Description 

User defined string 

laser printer near breakroom

N/A 

Optional 

Printer Port 

Device printer is attached to 

/dev/term/a

/dev/term/a

Required to install an attached printer 

Printer Type 

Type of printer 

unknown

PostScript

Required to install an attached or network printer  

File Contents 

Content to be printed 

any

PostScript

Required to install an attached or network printer  

Destination 

Destination name for network printers 

See Selecting the Destination (or Network Printer Access) Name for examples

N/A 

Required to install a network printer  

Protocol 

Protocol used to communicate with printer 

TCP

BSD

Required to install a network printer  

Fault Notification 

How to notify user of errors 

Mail to superuser

Write to superuser

Optional 

Default Printer 

Identifies the default printer 

N/A 

N/A 

Optional 

Always Print Banner 

Print banner with print job? 

N/A 

Banner is printed 

Optional 

User Access List 

List of users allowed to print 

rimmer,lister

All users can print 

Optional 

Solaris Print Manager and Special Characters

Solaris Print Manager checks user input for the various text fields in the input screens. There are two types of checking: general illegal input and input that is illegal for specific fields.

Solaris Print Manager does not accept the following characters as input, except for the help screens: