My original question:
We have gotten to a point at our site where managing print queues has become
unmanagable. What we would like to do is to set up a single print server
and have all lp requests automatically forwarded there without setting up
local printcap files everywhere. Is there any way to set this up under
Digital Unix 3.2G, or is there any freely available software that will
allow this to be done?
Example:
> lpr -Pqueuename file <- have this automatically sent to the print
server.
Thanks to:
Alonso Nunez <alonso_at_msi.se>
George Gallen <ggallen_at_slackinc.com>
Eric Bennett <bennett_at_hpel.cees.edu>
Robert L. McMillin <rlm_at_syseca-us.com>
Andrew Leahy <A.Leahy_at_st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
The closest responses I got were:
1. Robert L. McMillin <rlm_at_syseca-us.com>:
Chant the following mantra: rdist is my friend. In situations like
this, I setup an rdist file (say, /etc/rdistfile) that looks something
like this:
HOSTS = ( host1 host2 host3 ... )
( /etc/printcap ) -> ${HOSTS}
install;
special /etc/printcap "/sbin/init.d/lpd stop; \
/sbin/init.d/lpd start";
This way, I choose one machine to be my "master" slave which has a copy
of all the necessary routing /etc/printcaps; all these do is route the
print jobs to the machine that actually does the spooling, so they'd
look like this:
lp:rm=spool_host:\
:rp=spool_queue_name:
# ...
Then, you can update all the others whenever you want to. Make sure all
the other machines trust your root by adding that hostname to /.rhosts,
and setting the permissions of that file to 644. You should even be
able to dork the above so you could use a differently named file on the
spooling machine, so that spooling machine could act as a master.
2. Andrew Leahy <A.Leahy_at_st.nepean.uws.edu.au>:
Try LPRng, this will do most of what you want. Importantly it can submit
jobs to remote printserver's WITHOUT having to setup local spool
directories or printcaps. Plus it has load's of other nice features!
ftp://dickory.sdsu.edu/pub/LPRng/
Summary:
LPRng looks like the kind of thing that I'm really looking for, however I
do need to investigate it further before I make any decisions.
I also found a package called rlpr which will forward jobs to a queue on a
specified host without knowing about it in the local printcap. I've tested
it on Linux and it works quite well, however I'm not sure if it will work
ok under Digital Unix yet.
--
Ian Colquhoun
ian.colquhoun_at_sheridanc.on.ca
Received on Tue Jan 21 1997 - 17:55:16 NZDT