Re: Remote printing

[Graham Ashton <graz@mindless.com>]

On 14 Dec, Kent West wrote:

> At 02:07 PM 12/14/1998 +0000, mark.lake@ucl.ac.uk wrote:
>>
>>I'd like to print directly to a networked laser printer that has its
>>own IP address.
>
> Yep, it's possible. Desirable? Depends. If you're the only one printing to
> it, sure. If others are printing to it also, it's probably better to point
> everyone to one queue instead of having multiple queues serving the same
> printer. 

agreed. some printers don't handle multiple simultaneous requests too
well, apparently.

>>2) how to go about it?
> 
> I was afraid you were going to ask that.

tricky one, and often depends on the model of the printer in question.
I'm no expert either, but here we go...

I think some network printers run a proper lpd demon, whereas some just
accept connections on TCP port 9100. If you have one of the latter the
best thing to do is to get a copy of LPRng, which is capable of doing
such things (and much more besides). It is a drop in replacement for the
standard lpd code, and there's a .deb for it too.

I'd get LPRng anyway, actually, as it's the business.

There's a HOWTO document as well (but it's huge). To give you a feel
for it, here's my /etc/printcap

# hplj4-136; HP LaserJet 4 on JetDirect EX card
hplj4-136|lp
  :lp=hplj4-136%9100
  :sh
  :cm=HP LaserJet4
  :sd=/var/spool/lpd/hplj4-136
  :lf=log
  :af=acct
  :of=/usr/local/lib/filters/ofhp:
  :if=/usr/local/lib/filters/ifhp:
  :vf=/usr/local/lib/filters/ifhp -c:
  :mx#0

The filters I'm using are specifically designed to work with HP
printers, and work like a charm. They're also available from the LPRng
web site.

Note that there aren't any \ characters at the end of each line (LPRng
doesn't need them), and that the :lp line is pointing to port 9100 on
host hplj4-136 (I don't think that you can specify a TCP port with most
implementations of lpd).

LPRng web site;

  http://www.astart.com/lprng/LPRng.html

-- 
Graham