System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration

Setting Up Printing (Task Map)

Task	Description	For Instructions
1. Add New Attached Printer	Use Solaris Print Manager to make the printer available for printing after you physically attach the printer to a system.	How to Add a New Attached Printer With Solaris Print Manager
2. Add Access to a Printer	Use Solaris Print Manager to 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	Use Printer Vendor Supplied Tools to configure the network printer after you physically connect the printer to the network.	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 that the banner pages 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 the fault alerts provided by Solaris Print Manager.	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. If you want to limit the access of a few users 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 a printer 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 that is 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:

Shell metacharacters, such as “\$^&*(){}`'|;:?<>, except for the destination field on the network printer screen, which accepts colons (:)
Multibyte characters
Pound signs (#), spaces, or tabs, except the description field, which accepts tabs