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Common question List
Problem list
Answers to common questions
Answers to common problems
The queue stanza starts with a line giving the queue its name. The next line of the queue stanza always contains the name of the queue device stanza. Following this is additional information defining the queue. For remote queues, the queue stanza contains information such as the remote print server, the remote print queue name, and the type of lpd protocol used on the print server.
The queue device stanza begins with the queue device name pointed to by the queue stanza. This stanza contains information such as if a header or trailer page is going to be sent with the print job. Probably the most important line in the queue device stanza is the backend program name. This backend program is the first program that actually reads the data file and processes the file and sends it to the printer. Actually backend programs can process data in other ways,and the print queue can be used as a way to serialize data. When the backend program is piobe, or any other program that calls piobe such as piojetd and piorlfb, there must be a virtual printer associated with the queue.
When a print job is submitted by a local print command such as enq, lp, lpr, qprt, or dtprint, these commands all call enq which submits the job to the qdaemon. A queued job is represented by a JDF or Job Description File in /usr/lib/lpd/qdir that describes the job number, the user environment, the print flags, and the files to be printed. The qdaemon passes this information to the backend program that processes the print job.
At AIX 4, the process is simple.
At AIX 3, the process can be more difficult.
The pinouts for serial adapters on the system differ between adapters,
but the meaning of the signals remains constant when applied to printing.
The following list shows the signal name and function:
Signal
Abreviation |
Signal
Meaning |
Definition and function of the signal |
TxD | Transmit Data | Data from the computer to the printer |
RxD | Receive Data | Data like XON/XOFF back from computer. |
CTS | Clear To Send | Used by AIX as a sign that the printer is turned on. Must be asserted by printer for AIX port to open. Queue will go down if signal not available. |
RTS | Ready To Send | Signal is asserted by AIX when the port is opened. |
DSR | Data Set Ready | Input signal to AIX, but not used in printing |
DTR | Data Terminal Ready | Signal is asserted by AIX when the port is opened. |
DCD | Data Carrier Detect | Input signal to AIX used for DTR (hardware) flow control. When signal drops, AIX stops sending data. When signal raises, AIX resumes. |
SGND | Signal Ground | Used to keep signal levels balanced between the system and printer. |
Question: The printer operator is logged on to a CDE (common desktop environment) window. When users print with qprt -m "Load my form" the operator doesn't see the message and when mail arrives back at the user, he doesn't know how to respond.
Answers: The problem is the console is /dev/lft. Change the console or use it.
There are a number of postscript viewers available to view postscript formatted files on the screen as they will appear when printed. Some of the choices from AIX are:
I have a PostScript file and I want to 'cat file > /dev/lp0',
but the printer just goes to FLUSHING. The same file prints fine to a queue.
I don't want a queue, how can I get the cat to work?
When you cat a file to /dev/lp0, the device driver can add carriage
returns and line feeds to the file based on the device width parameter.
One command to look at the device driver parameters is splp.
For example:
splp lp0
This will show you the width of the device.
You can also use smit printer and then change/show devices.
Usually this value is set to something around 80. Now look
at the PostScript file. If there are lines longer than 80,
a line feed and carriage return are being
added at the end of the first 80 characters in the line.
Thus the PostScript command has garbage in the middle.
Now try splp -w 10000 lp0. This is usually longer than the
line in the PostScript file and the file will go untouched.
Of course this may cause problems with any text you were trying to format.
Another course of action with a PostScript file is:
splp -p+ lp0In SMIT this looks like:
Send all characters to printer UNMODIFIED: YES for passthrough.Both of these print a postscript file for me that won't print the default settings.
The queue status of INITING for either a 4033 LAN attached printer or 4039 LAN attached printer indicates a problem with a "lockfile" in the /tmp directory on the system.
To prevent 2 print jobs from attempting to print to the same device at the same time, the 4033/4039 utility establishes a lock file in /tmp for the duration of the print job. Normally this file is erased at the end of the job.
If the INITING status remains for more than a few seconds then one of two things has occurred.
a) The same physical printer is being addressed using 2 different print device names, in which case the print job will continue as soon as the first print job is completed.
or
b) For some reason the process of sending the print job to the printer was interrupted. This might happen if you kill the actual backend process via a kill -9 command or if the system for some reason halts (for example, due to a power outage). The normal qcan or cancel command will NOT cause this problem as the backend processes will clean up and remove the lockfile as part of the job cancel.
To recover: With no print jobs running to the printer, go to the /tmp directory and delete the temp file. It will look something like: /tmp/10005A102781.TOK0.0 where '10005A102781' is the LAN address of the printer or 4033. This should clear up the problem.
This is usually an indication that there are extra files in /var/spool/lpd/qdir.
queue status warning: no queue ?????????????? in /etc/qconfig...for file /var/spool/lpd/qdir/default.log
AFS (Andrews File System) files have security permissions.
[ Doc Ref: 92031961517612 Publish Date: Oct. 17, 2000 4FAX Ref: 6436 ]