Printing in the Solaris Operating Environment

The Solaris printing software provides an environment for setting up and managing client access to printers on a network.

The Solaris printing software contains these components:

• Solaris Print Manager, a graphic user interface, provides the ability to manage printing configuration on a local system or in a name service.

• The LP print service commands, a command line interface used to set up and manage printers on a local system or in a name service. They also provide functionality that extend beyond the other print management tools.

Even if you do use Solaris Print Manager to set up printing, you will have to use some of the LP commands to completely manage printing in the Solaris environment. For more information, see Chapter 5, Administering Printers (Tasks).

The limitations of Solaris print software include the following:

• No support for print servers defined as s5 (the System V print protocol) in previous Solaris releases.

• No print filtering on print clients.

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: NIS, NIS+, NIS+ with Federated Naming Service (xfn), and files. You must be logged in as superuser to use this tool.

Using Solaris Printer Manager is the preferred method for managing printer configuration information. Solaris Printer Manager is preferred over Admintool: Printers because it centralizes printer information when used in conjunction with a name service. Using a name service for storing printer configuration information is desirable because a name service makes printer information available to all systems on the network. This method provides easier printing administration.

Solaris Print Manager recognizes existing printer information on the printer servers, print clients, and in the name service databases. No conversion tasks are required to use Solaris Print Manager as long as the print clients are running either the Solaris 2.6, 7, 8, or 9 releases.

The Solaris Print Manager package is SUNWppm.

For step-by-step instructions on setting up new printers with Solaris Print Manager, see Chapter 4, Setting Up Printers (Tasks).

Printing Support in the Name Service Switch

The printers database in /etc/nsswitch.conf, the name service switch file, provides centralized printer configuration information to print clients on the network.

By including the printers database and corresponding sources of information in the name service switch file, print clients automatically have access to printer configuration information without having to add it to their own systems.

The default printers entry in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file for files, LDAP, NIS, and NIS+ environments are described in the following table. The nisplus keyword represents the printers.org_dir table. The xfn keyword represents the FNS printer contexts.

Name Service Type	Default printers Entry
files	printers: user files
ldap	printers: user files ldap
nis	printers: user files nis
nis+	printers: user nisplus files xfn

For example, if your name service is NIS, printer configuration information on print clients is looked in the following sources in this order:

• user - Represents the user's $HOME/.printers file

• files - Represents the /etc/printers.conf file

• nis - Represents the printers.conf.byname table

For more information, see nsswitch.conf(4) and System Administration Guide: Naming and Directory Services (DNS, NIS, and LDAP).

Choosing a Method to Manage Printers

Adding printer information to a name service makes access to printers available to all systems on the network and generally makes printer administration easier because all the information about printers is centralized.

Name Service Configuration	Actions to Centralize Printer Information
Use a name service	Adding the printer to the LDAP, NIS, NIS+, or NIS+ (xfn) database makes the printer available to all systems on the network.
Don't use a name service	Adding the printer adds the printer information to the printer server's configuration files only. Print clients will not know about the printer automatically.  You will have to add the printer information to every print client that needs to use the printer.

The following table describes the major printer-related tasks and the tools available to perform the printing tasks.

Table 2–1 Solaris Printing Component Features

Component	Availability	Graphical User Interface?	Configures Network Printers?	Manages Print Clients and Servers?	Uses LDAP, NIS, NIS+, or NIS+ (xfn)?
Solaris Print Manager	Solaris 9 and compatible versions and Solaris Easy Access Server 3.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Admintool	Solaris 9 and compatible versions	Yes	No	Yes	No
LP commands	Solaris 9 and compatible versions	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

After using the preceding table to determine which printing tool is best for your network environment, see Chapter 4, Setting Up Printers (Tasks) for printer setup information.

Most printing configuration tasks can be accomplished with Solaris Print Manager. However, if you to needs write interface scripts or adding your own filters, you need to use the LP print service commands. These commands underlie Solaris Print Manager. Performing printing administration tasks with LP commands are described in Chapter 5, Administering Printers (Tasks).