General Prerequisites to Establish a OIT UNIX Printserver Print Queue

Before a new OIT UNIX printserver print queue can be established, the following general prerequisites must be met.

Technical Prerequisites

• The printer must accept the PostScript page description langauge.

• The printer must communicate using either TCP/IP or AppleTalk.

• If the printer communicates via TCP/IP, it must be accessible from the campus IP network. (I.e. if it is on a private network, that network must be connected in a way that allows it to communicate via IP to the rest of the campus network.)

• If the printer communicates via TCP/IP, it must support Hewlett Packard's "TCP port 9100" IP-based printing protocol, or the printer must have an internal printer daemon.

• If the printer communicates via AppleTalk, it must be accessible from the campus AppleTalk network. (I.e. if it is on a private network, that private network must be connected in a way that allows it to communicate via AppleTalk to the rest of the campus network.)

• If the printer communicates via AppleTalk, it must function as an Apple LaserWriter or clone; it must advertise an AppleTalk type of "LaserWriter" and understand the PostScript page description language.

Logistical Prerequisites

• The printer must be left on and connected to the network round-the-clock.

• If the printer is connected via Ethernet wiring, it must be registered in the Host Database. (If the printer is not connected directly via Ethernet wiring, but instead is connected via another host or bridge that in turn is connected via Ethernet wiring, then that host or bridge must still be registered in the Host Database.)

• Whenever the printer will be powered off or disconnected for more than a few days, the person responsible for the printer (specified on the Request To Establish a New Printserver Print Queue) should notify printmaster@princeton.edu.

• The person responsible for the printer (specified on the Request To Establish a New Printserver Print Queue) must be able to resolve problems associated with the printer; printmaster will contact that person if/when problems occur.

• Print jobs should not be allowed to accumulate in the print queue for an unreasonable length of time. For example, jobs should not be sent while the printer is offline, broken or out-of-paper for extended periods of time. Printmaster may delete such print jobs and disable the printserver print queue until the person responsible for the printer can resolve the problem.

• If there is a change to any of the information supplied on the Request To Establish a New Printserver Print Queue, or the print queue is no longer needed, the person responsible for the printer should advise printmaster@princeton.edu.

• If you want to ensure that customers on the OIT UNIX Systems can print to the print queue, you should specify on the request form that the queue should be defined on the OIT UNIX Systems. If you specify on the request form that the queue should not be defined on the OIT UNIX Systems, you should be aware that on some OIT UNIX Systems, this may prevent customers from sending jobs to the queue, depending on the particular operating system running on that OIT UNIX System. Some operating systems will allow the customers to send jobs to the queue even if the queue is not defined on that system, as long as the customer knows the queue name and printserver name.

• You may wish to print via the printserver print queue from a host other than a OIT UNIX system; for example from a departmental or private computer. If so, it is is your responsibility to arrange for your computer to be configured as necessary.

  Your computer will need to be configured to forward print jobs to a print queue on the OIT host named printserver, using BSD-style LPD. (Printmaster will advise you of the queue name to use when the printserver print queue is set up.) Hosts that cannot send valid BSD-style LPD print jobs will be unable to send jobs to printserver. Printserver not support the System V lp protocol.

  The data file(s) and control file sent by your computer must be named so they end with your computer's DNS hostname (preferrably fully-qualified); the identical hostname must appear in the control file's 'H' entry.

  Determining how to configure your private or departmental computer is your responsibility, or of the person(s) responsible for your computer; we cannot provide instructions for this.

  You may wish to examine the way OIT UNIX systems configures print queues on arizona (Solaris 8 systems), or sesamest (IRIX systems) hats (Linux). To cause your UNIX system to automatically create (and delete) print queues as they are added to the OIT UNIX systems, you may wish to run (or modify for your own use) the software used on OIT UNIX systems to perform this task: /usr/cit/etc/MakeSSPC (for Solaris 8), /usr/cit/etc/MakeLP (for Solaris 2.5.x). or /usr/cit/etc/MakePrintcap (for SunOS 4 or IRIX).

  If you have a Windows NT system, you may wish to consult Configuring Windows NT 4.0 to Print via LPR to OIT's Unix Printserver, published by OIT's PC Systems group.

• OIT is pleased to supply this service to you at no charge at this time. We reserve the right and have the responsibility to inform you that we may have to charge for this service in the future. We are unaware of any plans to charge for this service in the near future.