Fundamentals of Printing in the Solaris Operating System

The Solaris printing software provides an environment for setting up and managing print servers and print clients.

The Solaris printing software contains these tools and services:

• Solaris Print Manager – A graphical user interface (GUI) that enables you to manage printing configuration on a local system or in a naming service.

• LP print service commands – A command-line interface (CLI) that is used to set up and manage printers on a local system or in a naming service. These commands also provide functionality that extend beyond the other print management tools.

• PostScript Printer Definition File Manager (ppdmgr) – The PPD File Manager is a command-line utility that is used to administer PPD files and the cache of printer information on a Solaris system.

• OpenSolaris Print Manager – Is a GUI tool that is available in the GNOME Desktop Environment for automatic printer discovery and configuration. The tool monitors printer attachments and detachments.

For more information, see Chapter 5, Administering Printers by Using Solaris Print Manager and LP Print Commands (Tasks).

The Solaris printing software includes these additional interfaces, protocols, and technologies:

• Open Standard Print API (PAPI) interface

• Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) protocol

• Internet Printing Protocol (IPP)

• Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, through Samba