From kbs=cusm@shady.com Thu Apr 15 17:44:04 1999
Path: rQdQ!remarQ73!supernews.com!remarQ.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!newshub.northeast.verio.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!192.65.202.1!dsinc!nntp.upenn.edu!news.misty.com!shady!shady!not-for-mail
From: kbs=cusm@shady.com (Kevin Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sco.misc
Subject: Re: On pooling of printers
Date: 15 Apr 1999 20:44:04 -0400
Organization: ShadeTree Software, Inc.
Lines: 183
Sender: kevin@shady.com
Message-ID: <7f614k$p01@shady.shady.com>
References: <slrn7hattd.gth.mansaxel@bartlet.df.lth.se>
NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.shady.com
Xref: rQdQ comp.unix.sco.misc:86249

In article <slrn7hattd.gth.mansaxel@bartlet.df.lth.se> mansaxel@bartlet.df.lth.se (Måns Nilsson) writes:
>As I have discovered, after much grief, SysV printing does not support printer
>classes for BSD-style lpd print queues. Not on OpenSewer, and not on Slowaris.
>The only solution as I see it now is to get an NT server to do the pooling and
>print through it via lpd, which the customer naturally is a little bit worried
>over, with NT reliability issues and the like. My question would then be this:
>
>Has anyone come up with a method  to do printer classes using  remote printers 
>under SCO? I am unable to do classes on another system, since the printers are 
>a mix of Jet Direct cards and Axis print servers.

You can define all local printers that forward to the remote printers
in the interface script then class them all you want.  Generally I
setup remote printers with the same name as the local printer but with
a leading 'r'.  The local printer interface just does

    ... | lp -dr$printer

where $printer is determined from the script name (i.e. basename $0).
I did an implementation that would wait for the remote printer queue
to empty before forwarding the job.  This would get you the right
disbursment of jobs sent to a class.

You could also use my netcat program
(http://www.cruzio.com/~jeffl/sco/lp/) to address the jetdirects
directly from a local printer interface script and I've recently
started using axis's prossysv.c (modified to read stdin) to do the
same (the rtelnet interface seems to not like direct output from
netcat... probably need to negotiate some telnet options...).


This is the interface to sit on the remote queue and forward jobs
------ stsnet ------
:
# @(#)stsnet - model lp interface to forward to remote printer
# @(#)STS/KBS Sep 25 1995
#!	ShadeTree Software, Inc.  Printer Interface Model
# Look for remote printer (/etc/printcap) the same as our current
# name but with an 'r' prefix.  Wait for the remote print queue to
# empty, then forward the current job to the remote printer

PRINTCAP=/etc/printcap
LOCALPATH=/usr/spool/lp/bin
PATH=$PATH:$LOCALPATH:/usr/lib
LPBASE=`basename $0`			# get printer name from cmd

# exit and cancelation special processing
_cancel() {
    # cancel printing
    :
}
_exit() {
    # clean up before leaving
    :
}
_init() {
    # printer initialization
    :
}
_fail() {
    # Failed to forward request.  Disable printer
    failmsg="$*"
    echo "$failmsg" >&2
    disable -r "$failmsg" $LPBASE
    exit 1
}

#Get remote printer queue
RLP=r${LPBASE}
[ ! -r $PRINTCAP ] && _fail "Cannot read $PRINTCAP"
queue=`
    sed -n '
	    /^#/d
	    /^[ 	]*$/d
	    /\\\/ {
		    s/\\\/ /g
		    H
		    b
		}
	    H
	    g
	    s/\n/ /g
	    s/\(:..\):/\1=:/g
	    s/\(:..\)#/\1=/g
	    s/:/ /g
	    s/^[ 	]*/printer=/
	    p
	    s/.*//
	    h
	' $PRINTCAP |
    while read line
    do
	eval "$line"		# set variables from joined line
	[ x"$printer" = x$RLP ] && {
	    echo "$sd"
	    break
	}
    done
`
[ x"$queue" = x ] && _fail "Cannot determine queue for remote printer $RLP"

while :
do
    break=yes
    for qf in $queue/cf*
    do
	[ -f $qf ] && {
	    sleep 5
	    break=no
	    break
	}
    done
    [ $break = yes ] && break
done

#Set up the default filter.
if [  -x "${LOCALPATH}/lp.cat" ]
then
	LPCAT="${LOCALPATH}/lp.cat 0"
else
	LPCAT="cat"
fi

# trap exits and cancelations and perform special processing
trap '_exit' 0
trap '_cancel;exit 0' 1 2 3 15

nhead=0					# set to 1 or more to enable banners
printer=`basename $0`
request=$1
name=$2
title=$3
copies=$4
options=$5
shift; shift; shift; shift; shift

# If it is necessary to change the baud rate or other stty settings for
# your serial printer add the appropriate options here:
# stty onlcr time 30 <&1

# border around the banner
x="XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

# the fifth field of the /etc/passwd file is assigned to the variable user
user=`sed -n "s/^$name:.*:.*:.*:\(.*\):.*:.*$/\1/p" /etc/passwd`

{
    # initialize the printer
    _init

    # print the banner $nhead times
    while	[ "$nhead" -gt 0 ]
    do
	    echo "$x\n"
	    banner "$name"
	    echo "$x\n"
	    [ "$user" ] && echo "User: $user\n"
	    echo "Request id: $request\n"
	    echo "Printer: $printer\n"
	    date
	    echo
	    [ "$title" ] && banner $title
	    echo "\f\c"
	    nhead=`expr $nhead - 1`
    done

    n=1
    while [ $n -le $copies ]
    do
	# send the file(s) to the standard out $copies times
	for file
	do
	    0<$file eval ${LPCAT} 2>&1
	    echo "\f\c"
	done
	n=`expr $n + 1`
    done

} | lponlcr | lp -d${RLP} -s
exit 0
-- 
Do two rights make | Kevin Smith, ShadeTree Software, Philadelpha, PA, USA
a libertarian      | 001-215-487-3811  shady.com,kevin  bbs.cpcn.com,sysop