CHAPTER 6
Administering Printing

What's New in Printing

Print Administration Tools in the Solaris 2.6 Environment

Choosing a Method to Manage Printers

Introducing the LP Print Service

Understanding the Structure of the LP Print Service

Using the SunSoft Print Client

Setting Up Printing Services

Using Printing Commands

PRINTING IN THE SOLARIS 2.X ENVIRONMENT IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM printing with SunOS 4.x. Descriptions of printers are no longer stored in the /etc /printcap files. Instead, they are described by entries in the terminfo database. If you install the binary compatibility package ( BCP), you can continue to use the lpr and lpc printing commands. These commands do not, however, use the lpr printing system. Instead, they call the appropriate LP print service commands to perform the requested actions.

The new printing service consists of the LP print service software, any print filters ( programs that process data before printing) you may provide, and the hardware (the printer, workstation, and network connections).

This chapter briefly describes the LP print service; lists the files, daemons, and logs used by the LP print service; provides steps for setting up print servers and clients; and describes the basic commands used for printing.

What's New in Printing

The Solaris 2.6 print software provides better centralized print administration than the LP print software in previous Solaris releases. With the Solaris 2.6 release, you can easily set up and manage print clients by using the NIS or NIS+ name services.

Solaris 2.6 print software features include:

•  Redesign of print packages

•  Print protocol adapter

•  SunSoft print client

•  Network printer support

The Solaris 2.6 print software limitations include:

•  No support for print servers defined as S5 (the System V print protocol) in previous Solaris 2.x releases.

•  No print filtering on print clients.

Redesign of Print Packages

The Solaris 2.6 print packages have been redesigned to provide greater flexibility and modularity of print software installation and to enable installation of a smaller print client footprint.

With the Solaris 2.6 redesign, the default is to install all the packages. Print servers require installation of all packages, including both client and server. For print clients, you can choose to install only the print client packages. PostScript filter software is provided in its own print package. Table 6-1 describes the new set of print packages.

The following print packages have been removed from the Solaris 2.6 release:

•  SUNWlpr--LP print service (root)

•  SUNWlpu--LP print service--Client (usr)

•  SUNWlps--LP print service--Server (usr)

Print commands from SUNWscpu have been moved into the SUNWscplp (SunSoft Print-- Source Compatibility) package.

Print Protocol Adaptor

The Solaris 2.6 print protocol adapter replaces the Service Access Facility (SAF), the network listener, and lpNet on the inbound side of the LP spooler with a more modular and modern design.

The print protocol adapter provides the following features:

•  Implementation of the complete BSD print protocol plus extended Solaris functionality.

•  Multiple spooling systems can coexist on the same host and have access to the BSD print protocol.

•  Third-party application developers can extend the print protocol adapter to support other printing protocols such as Apple and Novell.

The new print protocol adapter is compatible with print clients set up in previous Solaris 2.x releases if the BSD protocol was used to configure these clients. If the BSD protocol was not used, you must modify the previous Solaris 2.x print client configuration to use the BSD protocol by using Admintool, Solstice Printer Manager, or the lpsystem command.

SunSoft Print Client

The SunSoft Print Client software is now bundled with the Solaris 2.6 release as packages SUNWpcr and SUNWpcu. This software was previously released as an unbundled product. It was available on the Solaris Migration CD and as part of the AdminSuite 2.x suite of administration products.

The SunSoft Print Client software uses an NIS map, an NIS+ table, or a single file to provide centralized client administration in the Solaris 2.6 release. Features of the Print Client software include:

•  Replacing the /etc/lp directory structure with a configuration database that can be stored in a user file ($HOME/.printers), a system file (/etc/prints.conf), an NIS map (printers.conf.byname), or an NIS+ FNS context.

•  Using a more streamlined implementation providing reduced client overhead and quicker and more accurate responses to print status requests.

•  Using the lpset(1M) command to create the printers.conf file.

•  Reducing the size of the package (183 Kbyte total) from previous Solaris releases.

•  Providing interoperability with the BSD protocol available with SunOS 4.x, Solaris 2.x, HPUX, and other systems, as described in RFC-1179.