Planning for Printer Setup and Administration
This section provides an overview of planning for printing that includes the following:
Defining attributes of printers, such as printer name, printer description, printer port
Selecting a printer make, model, and driver (for setting up printers with PPD files)
Selecting a printer type and file content type (for setting up printers without PPD files)
Determining which PPD file to use (for setting up printers with PPD files)
Setting up a default printer destination
Determining whether you want to print banner pages
Limiting user access to printer
Setting up printer classes
Setting up fault notification
Setting up fault recovery
Setting Printer Definitions
Setting definitions for printers is an ongoing task that lets you provide a
more effective print environment for users. For example, you can assign parameters for
all your site's printers to help users find where a printer is located.
Or, you can define a class of printers to provide the fastest turnaround
for print requests.
The following table describes printer definitions that you can set by using the
lpadmin command. Also included is information about whether you can set these printer
definitions by using Solaris Print Manager. For more information about setting up printers,
see Chapter 4, Setting Up Printers (Tasks)
Definition |
Description |
Example |
Default |
Required? |
Available in Solaris Print Manager? |
Printer Name |
Name of printer |
laser1 |
N/A |
Required to install an attached
or network printer and to add access to a print queue |
Available |
Print server |
Name of print
server |
venus |
Use localhost for Printer Server attribute check box selected by default |
Required to install an attached or network
printer and to add access to a printer — this field is filled
in by the tool. |
Available |
Description |
User defined string |
laser printer near breakroom |
N/A |
Optional |
Available |
Printer Port |
Device that the printer is attached to |
/dev/term/a |
/dev/term/a |
Required
to install an attached printer |
Available |
Printer Type |
Type of printer |
unknown |
PostScript |
Required to install an attached printer
or a network printer without PPD files |
Available |
File Content Type |
Content to be printed |
any |
PostScript |
Required to install an
attached printer or a network printer without PPD files |
Available |
Printer Make |
Make of printer |
Lexmark |
N/A |
Required to install
an attached printer or a network printer with PPD files |
Available |
Printer Model |
Model of printer |
Lexmark Optra
E312 |
N/A |
Required to install an attached printer or a network printer with PPD files |
Available |
Printer Driver |
Driver
that is used by specifying PPD file |
Foomatic/PostScript |
N/A |
Required to install an attached printer
or a network printer with PPD files |
Available |
Destination |
Destination name for the network printer |
For examples,
see Selecting the Destination Name (Also Called the Network Printer Access Name) |
N/A |
Required to install a network printer |
Available |
Protocol |
Protocol used to communicate with the
printer |
TCP, URI |
BSD |
Required to install a network printer |
Available |
Fault Notification |
Specifies how to notify user of
errors |
Mail to superuser |
Write to superuser |
Optional |
Available |
Default Printer |
Identifies the default printer |
N/A |
N/A |
Optional |
Available |
Banner Page |
Specifies to print a banner page |
N/A |
Set to On, unless
otherwise specified |
Optional |
Available |
User Access List |
List of users allowed to print on the print server |
rimmer,lister |
All users
can print |
Optional |
Available |
Printer Class |
Specifies a class of printers by printer type, location, or work
group or department. |
lpadmin -p luna -c roughdrafts |
N/A |
Optional |
Not Available |
Fault Recovery |
Defines recovery options for printers. |
lpadmin -p mars -A 'mail joe' -W 5 |
N/A |
Optional |
Not Available |
For more information about using LP print commands to set or reset
printer definitions, see Setting Printer Definitions by Using LP Print Commands.
Printer Name
When adding a printer to a system, you specify a printer name for the
printer.
A printer name must adhere to these guidelines:
The printer name must be unique among all printers within the bounds of an administrative domain.
The printer name can have a maximum of 14 alphanumeric characters, which can include dashes and underscores.
Note - Printer names can now include a dot (.) and be up to 255 characters in length.
The printer name should be easy to remember and can identify the type of printer, its location, or the print server name.
Establish a naming convention that works for your site. For example, if you
have different types of printers on the network, including the printer type as
part of the printer name can help users choose an appropriate printer. For
instance, you could identify PostScript printers with the letters PS. However, if
all of the printers at your site are PostScript printers, you would not
need to include the initials PS as part of the printer name.
Printer Server
The print server is the system that has a local printer connected
to it and makes the printer available to other systems on the network.
Printer Description
You can assign a description to a printer by using the lpadmin
-D command or by using Solaris Print Manager. The printer's description should contain
information that helps users identify the printer. You might include the room number
where the printer is located, the type of printer, the manufacturer, or the
name of the person to call if printing problems occur.
Users can view a printer description by using the following command:
$ lpstat -D -p printer-name
Printer Port
When you initially install a printer, or later change its setup, you can
specify the device, or the printer port, to which the printer is connected. You
can use either Solaris Print Manager or the lpadmin -p printer-name -v device-name
command to specify the device or printer port.
Most systems have two serial ports, plus a parallel port or USB ports.
Unless you add ports, you cannot directly connect more than two serial printers
and a parallel printer, or two USB printers, to one system.
You can select the following printer port types by using Solaris Print Manager.
These options give you as much flexibility as using the lpadmin command.
Printer Port Type |
Corresponding Device Name Options |
Serial |
/dev/term/a |
Serial |
/dev/term/b |
Parallel |
/dev/printers/0 —> /dev/ecpp0 |
USB |
/dev/printers/[1–9] |
Specify any port name that
the print server recognizes |
Other |
The LP print service initializes the printer port by using the settings from
the standard printer interface program. For more information about printer interface programs, see
Administering Print Filters. If you have a parallel printer or a serial printer for which
the default settings do not work, see Adjusting Printer Port Characteristics.
x86 only - If you use multiple ports on an x86 based system, only the first
port is enabled by default. The second port, and any subsequent ports, are
disabled by default. To use more than one port, you must manually edit
the device driver port configuration file for each additional asy (serial) port or
ecpp (parallel) port. The path names for the x86 port configuration files
are the following:
/kernel/drv/asy.conf
/kernel/drv/ecpp.conf
Printer Type
The printer type is a generic name for a type of printer. Printer type
identifies the terminfo database entry that contains various control sequences for the printer.
By convention, printer type is usually derived from the manufacturer's model name. For
example, the printer type name for the DECwriter printer is decwriter. However, the common
printer type PS does not follow this convention. PS is used as the
printer type for many models of PostScript printers, such as the Apple LaserWriterI
and Apple LaserWriterII printers. For more information about the terminfo database, see The terminfo Database.
You can specify the printer type by using the lpadmin -T command or Solaris
Print Manager.
Selecting a Printer Type
In this Solaris release, you can assign a printer type with Solaris Print
Manager if you deselect the Use PPD files default attribute in the
Print Manager drop-down menu in Solaris Print Manager. This printer definition is not available
when the Use PPD files attribute is selected. When you add a printer
with PPD files, the printer make, model, and driver printer definitions replace the
printer type definition.
For a local PostScript printer, use a printer type of either PostScript (PS) or
Reverse PostScript (PSR). If your printer supports PostScript, choose PS or PSR, even
if the specific printer type is listed in the terminfo database.
If your PostScript printer prints pages face up, documents appear to be printed
backwards. As such, the first page is at the bottom of the
stack and the last page is on the top. If you specify the
printer's type as PSR, the LP print service reverses the order of
the pages before sending the pages to the printer. The last page
is printed first, and the pages are stacked in forward order. However, the
LP print service can reliably change the page order only for PostScript files
that conform to the Adobe®
Technical Note #5001, PostScript Language Document Structuring Conventions Specification. This document is available
on the Adobe Developer Relations web site.
If a printer can emulate more than one kind of printer, you
can assign several printer types by using the lpadmin -T command. If you specify
more than one printer type, the LP print service uses the printer type
that is appropriate for each print request.
You might not find the printer type in the appropriate terminfo directory. The
type of printer is not necessarily linked to the manufacturer's name on the
printer. For example, for any type of PostScript printer, you can use the
PS or PSR entry, found in the /usr/share/lib/terminfo/P directory, instead of an entry
specific to the manufacturer or product name.
If you have an unusual type of printer, you might need to
try different entries before you can determine whether a particular terminfo entry works for
your type of printer. If possible, find an entry in the terminfo
database that works for your printer. Trying to use an existing entry is
much easier than trying to create an entry. If you must create
your own entry, Adding a terminfo Entry for an Unsupported Printer contains some useful tips.
Selecting a File Content Type
In this Solaris release, to assign the file content type printer definition by
using Solaris Print Manager, first deselect the Use PPD files default attribute in
the Print Manager drop-down menu in Solaris Print Manager. You cannot select a
file content type if you use PPD files. The default file content
type for printers that are associated with PPD files is PostScript. This file
content type is automatically set by the tool. You can also specify file
content type by using the lpadmin -I command.
Print filters convert the content type of a file to a content
type that is acceptable to the destination printer. The file content type tells the LP print
service the type of file contents that can be printed directly, without any
filtering. To print without filtering, the necessary fonts must also be available in
the printer. You must set up and use filtering for other types of
files.
Most printers can print directly the following types of files:
The same type as the printer type. For example, PS for a PostScript printer.
The simple type. For example, an ASCII text file.
When submitting a file for printing, the user can indicate the content type
of the file by using the lp -T content-type command. If no file content
type is supplied when the request is submitted, the LP print service checks
the first file in the request to determine the content type. If the
file begins with ^D%! or %!, the request is considered to contain PostScript
data. Otherwise, the request is assumed to contain simple (ASCII) text. The LP
print service uses the file content type to determine which filters to use
to convert the file contents into a type the printer can handle.
When you are not specifying PPD files, Solaris Print Manager provides a list
of file content types from which you can choose when you install or
modify an attached or network printer. The choices are translated to the names
that the LP print service uses. The following table describes the file content
types that you can choose with Solaris Print Manager.
Table 2-2 Choosing File Content Type With Solaris Print Manager When Not Using PPD Files
File Contents Choice |
LP Print Service
Name |
Description |
PostScript |
postscript |
PostScript files do not require filtering. |
ASCII |
simple |
ASCII files do not require filtering. |
Both
PostScript and ASCII |
simple, postscript |
PostScript files and ASCII files do not require filtering. |
None |
"" |
All
files require filtering, except those files that match the printer's type. |
Any |
any |
No filtering is
required. If the printer cannot handle a file content type directly, the file
will not be printed. |
Choose the file content type that best matches the printer's capabilities. PostScript is
the default choice in Solaris Print Manager and is probably correct most of
the time. PostScript means that filtering is not needed for PostScript files.
Printer Make
When you set up a printer with PPD files, the printer make is
the name of the manufacturer of the printer. The printer make is found
on the printer itself, and on the packaging materials and documentation that is
shipped with the printer.
The following are examples of printer makes that are available in this release:
Lexmark
Epson
Canon
QMS
Xerox
Printer Model
The printer manufacturers produce several types and models of printers. When you set
up a printer with PPD files, the printer model defines the printer precisely.
The model is usually stamped on the front or top of the printer.
This information is also displayed on the packaging materials and documentation that is
shipped with the printer.
The following are examples of printer models that are available in this release:
Lexmark Optra E312
Lexmark Z32
Lexmark 1000
Printer Driver
The printer driver is determined when you select the PPD file for the specified
printer make and printer model
Printer Destination
This printer definition specifies the host name, IP address, or URI of the
target printer. This definition applies to network‐attached printers only.
Printer URIs can be specified by using the following formats:
lpd://{printer-name or ip}/printers/print-queue
ipp://{printer-name or ip}/printers/print-queue
socket://{printer-name or ip}:{port}
smb://{windows-host}/{printer}
Network Protocol
This printer definition specifies the protocol to be used between the print server
and the printer. The current choices are the BSD, TCP and URI network
protocols. This printer definition applies to network‐attached printers only.
Fault Notification
This printer definition is used to specify whether a notification is sent when
a printer fault is detected, and how the notification should be sent.
Default Printer
The default printer is the printer that the print system commands use when
a printer is not specified on the command line or in by
using a printing tool. For more information about using LP print commands to
set up a default printer destination, see Setting Up a Default Printer Destination by Using LP Print Commands.
Banner Page
The banner page is the first sheet that is printed when on
a print job is requested. The banner page can be set to always
print, optionally print, or never print. For more information about using LP print
commands to specify banner page options, see Printing Banner Pages by Using LP Print Commands.
User Access List
The user access list specifies a list of users are allowed to
print from the specified print server. For more information about using LP print commands
to limit user access to a printer, see Limiting User Access to a Printer by Using LP Print Commands
Printer Class
A printer class is a collection of printers. Print requests that go to
a class of printers are handled by the first available printer in
that class. For more information about using LP print command to define printer classes,
see Setting Up Printer Classes by Using LP Print Commands
Fault Recovery
You can find out about printing faults so that you can correct
the problem. Fault recovery options are defined by using the lpadmin command with the
-F option. For more information about using LP print commands to set up
fault recovery, see Setting Up Printer Fault Recovery by Using LP Print Commands