HP JetDirect and JetDirect Ex3 Printing in AIX 4.2.1
and Later
HP JetDirect and JetDirect Ex3 Printing in AIX 4.2.1 and
Later
Contents
This document contains instructions for configuring and troubleshooting HP
JetDirect and
JetDirect Ex3 printers in AIX 4.2.1 and later.
- AIX version 4.2.1 or later should be installed on the
system to use ports 2 and 3 or the HP JetDirect EX3
box. This document describes adding JetDirect queues
at AIX 4.2.1 or later. For earlier releases of AIX see the technical
document, "Printing to JetDirect Attached Printers: AIX 3.2.5 to 4.2.0".
- A working knowledge of Ethernet, addressing, TCP/IP, and
SMIT (System Management Interface Tool) is assumed.
- The printer should be configured for network printing
(that is, the JetDirect card should be physically installed
and configured as necessary).
- This document assumes that you are not setting up a JetDirect
card with an "lpd" (RFC 1179) daemon running on the card.
Check with Hewlett-Packard for model specifications.
- This document assumes that your network is running TCP/IP
protocol though you could be running multiprocotol--that is,
Novell IPX in along with TCP/IP protocol.
The JetDirect card requires network configuration data (such
as the card's IP address and subnet mask) each time the printer
is powered on in order to communicate with the host system over
the network.
The card can get this data either from a BOOTP/TFTP server
on the network or from parameters entered manually from the
front panel on the printer and saved in nonvolatile memory
on the card. The method of attaining an IP address for the card
is dependent on type of card (external box, like the EX model,
or internal card) and the type of printer. When shipped from
the factory, the card is set to get network configuration data
from the network (BOOTP/TFTP server).
The method of setting the IP addresses is described in
the technical document, "Setting the IP Address for HP
Printers", which can be found on the
Hewlett Packard Web site.
If you cannot manually configure the card to accept the IP
address from the front panel of the printer, then to get
configuration data from the network, the BOOTP/TFTP server
must be configured. When BOOTP/TFTP is configured on the
server, the server will recognize the network
query (hardware address broadcast) generated by the card and
will send the appropriate data to the card.
- The BOOTP/TFTP server cannot be across the gateway from
the printer.
- There should be only one machine on the network that
acts as the BOOTP/TFTP server.
- AIX support for the HP JetDirect cards really only supports
ethernet; however,
you should be able to use the card on a token ring
set up with only minor modification. See at the end
of the document under TOKEN RING SETTING.
This really only
has to do with bootptab hardware type settings.
- If you are going across a router from the server to JetDirect
printer AND if you are using BOOTP/TFTP to download IP
address to the printer, then YOU MUST make sure that the
router is configured to allow bootp daemon to go across
that particular router (this is something you must
configure, AIX support cannot help you with this!).
Follow these steps. These steps
will configure the server to use the JetDirect printer and
will, if necessary, make the server a BOOTP/TFTP server.
Have the following data written down and available prior to
beginning (get this information NOW):
- a. IP address for JetDirect card __________________________.
- b. Hostname associated with IP address ____________________.
- c. Hardware address of JetDirect card _____________________.
- d. Network type (ethernet, token ring) ____________________.
- e. Gateway address of network _____________________________.
- f. Subnet Mask of network _________________________________.
- g. Printer type (model, make) _____________________________.
Some of this data may or may not be used depending
on your particular network setup and whether or not you want
to set up your system as a BOOTP/TFTP server. For
instance, you might not be going through a gateway, in which case
you will not have an entry for the gateway address.
For demonstration purposes, use the following setup
(refer to the letters in the preceding list for references to the items below):
- a. 150.1.1.4
- b. hp4
- c. 080109463974
- d. ethernet
- e. 150.1.1.1
- f. 255.255.255.0
- g. HP LaserJet IV
NOTE: The hardware address may be attained by printing out a
test page on your printer once the JetDirect card is connected
to your printer. Check the printer and JetDirect card manual for
instructions on how to do this. The entry on the test page
should look something like this: "LAN HW Address". Usually,
the JetDirect card will also have the hardware address written
on it. Make a note of the fact that the test page will also
indicate that there is NOT an IP address presently on the card
unless you have already entered one through the front panel.
STEP 1. To BOOTP/TFTP or not; deciding whether or not to make
the system a BOOTP/TFTP server. Some things to consider at
this point:
- a. Were you able to enter the IP address of the printer
at the site of the printer (front panel input)?
- b. Is there another BOOTP/TFTP server on the same network?
- Refer to the following decision help matrix.
Questions
a b Answers
--- --- ----------------------------------------
Yes Yes Up to you as to if you want to set up the
JetDirect through a BOOTP/TFTP server or not.
Note that if you choose to set the JetDirect
through a BOOTP/TFTP server, then you must make
sure the BOOTP/TFTP server on the same network
is configured appropriately.
Suggestion: Do NOT set this up as a BOOTP/TFTP
server. In STEP 6, choose option No. 2.
Yes No Same as above.
Suggestion: Do NOT set this up as a BOOTP/TFTP
server. In STEP 6, choose option No. 2.
No Yes If the other BOOTP/TFTP server on the same
network is an IBM eServer pSeries or
RS/6000, you must be on that system
to continue on with the steps.
Suggestion: You really don't have a choice here
but to set this up as a BOOTP/TFTP server. In
STEP 6, choose option No. 1.
If the other BOOTP/TFTP server is not a pSeries
or RS/6000, then you must do what is appropriate on
that system to configure the network data for the
JetDirect down loading.
Suggestion: Since the downloading of network
data is being done on the other machine, you don't
need to set the system up as a BOOTP/TFTP server.
In STEP 6, choose option No. 2.
No No You don't have a choice here. You must set up the
system to be a BOOTP/TFTP server since there is no
other way to down load the network data to the
JetDirect Card.
Suggestion: Not really a suggestion. In STEP 6,
you must choose option No. 1.
- If you are setting up the system to be a BOOTP/TFTP server then
you must do the following prior to proceeding to STEP 2. If
you are not, then just ignore the following and proceed to
STEP 2.
- First, in the "/etc/inetd.conf" file make sure "bootps" and "tftp"
are not commented out; that is, the lines containing "bootps" and
"tftp" should not begin with a # symbol (if the lines do begin
with the # symbol, then you must erase the # from the lines).
- Next, at the AIX command line type "inetimp". This will
redigest the "inetd.conf" into something that the server can use.
We need to do this because you have just edited that file.
- Finally, at the AIX command line type "refresh -s inetd". This
will cause the "inetd" daemon to refresh itself, that is, to
reexamine the redigested "inetd.conf" file for the new information.
STEP 2. Make sure the printer has a valid hostname and IP
address:
STEP 3. Entering the following at the AIX command line:
- smitty mkpq
- You will see the following menu screen (or something
similar):
----------------------------------------------------------------
Add a Print Queue
Move cursor to desired item and press Enter. Use arrow keys to scroll.
# ATTACHMENT TYPE DESCRIPTION
local Printer Attached to Local Host
remote Printer Attached to Remote Host
ascii Printer Attached to ASCII Terminal
hpJetDirect Network Printer (HP JetDirect)
file File (in /dev directory)
ibmNetPrinter IBM Network Printer\
other User Defined Backend
F1=Help F2=Refresh F3=Cancel
8=Image F10=Exit Enter=Do
/=Find n=Find Next
----------------------------------------------------------------
STEP 4. Select hpJetDirect Network Printer (HP JetDirect)
and press the Enter key.
- If the preceding option, No. 4, does not appear on the SMIT
menu, then either AIX is not installed to the correct update
level (3.2.5) or the system does not have all the
necessary software installed. You cannot proceed unless you have
No. 4 as an option. Check installation if you do not see
the No. 4 option.
If you get a message that the software is not installed, then
place the AIX Installation Media into the proper device
and continue witht he installation of the HP JetDirect drivers.
The install screens will give you only the printer drivers when
entered from this point in smit. Once you have installed the
software you will have to restart at STEP 1.
STEP 5. The following prompt will appear on the screen once you
have chosen No. 4 and press the Enter key:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Printer Type
Move cursor to desired item and press Enter.
Bull
Canon
Dataproducts
Hewlett-Packard
IBM
Lexmark
OKI
Printronix
QMS
Texas Instruments
Other (Select this if your printer type is not listed above)
F1=Help F2=Refresh F3=Cancel
F8=Image F10=Exit Enter=Do
/=Find n=Find Next
----------------------------------------------------------------
Select the printer manufacturer and press Enter.
STEP 6. The following menu will then be displayed (for example, after choosing
HP):
----------------------------------------------------------------
Printer Type
Move cursor to desired item and press Enter.
hplj-2 Hewlett-Packard LaserJet II
hplj-3 Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III
hplj-3si Hewlett-Packard LaserJet IIISi
hplj-4+ Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4 Plus
hplj-4si Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4Si
hplj-4v Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4V
hplj-5si Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5Si/5Si MX
Other (Select this if your printer type is not listed above)
----------------------------------------------------------------
STEP 7. The following menu will then be displayed:
----------------------------------------------------------------
BOOTP/TFTP Server
Move the cursor to desired item and press Enter
1. Make this system a BOOTP/TFTP server
2. Do NOT make this system a BOOTP/TFTP server
Enter number from list above (press Enter to terminate): ->
----------------------------------------------------------------
From STEP 1, enter the number as appropriate to your situation.
- Press the "enter" key after you entered a number.
- If you choose option No. 1, then go to STEP 8 with bootp.
- If you choose option No. 2, then skip to STEP 8 without bootp.
- NOTE: Choosing option No. 1 will cause the creation
of an entry in the "/etc/bootptab" file for the particular
printer.
STEP 8 with bootp. After you choose option No. 1 and press the "enter"
key, the following prompt will appear:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Add a Print Queue
Type or select values in entry fields.
Press Enter AFTER making all desired changes.
[Entry Fields]
Description Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5Si/5Si
MX
Names of NEW print queues to add
PCL [hp5pcl]
PostScript [hp5ps]
HP-GL/2 []
Printer connection characteristics
* HOSTNAME of the JetDirect Card [hpprt3.aix.dfw.ibm.com]
* HARDWARE ADDRESS of the JetDirect Card [080109463974]
* NETWORK INTERFACE Ethernet
* PORT [9101]
GATEWAY ADDRESS [9.19.169.202]
SUBNET MASK [255.255.240.0]
F1=Help F2=Refresh F3=Cancel
F4=List
F5=Reset F6=Command F7=Edit
F8=Image
F9=Shell F10=Exit Enter=Do
----------------------------------------------------------------
- Enter the hardware address, host address, and so on and press the
Enter key.
In this example, the hardware address is 080109463974, and the hostname,
which
is either in the DNS server or in /etc/hosts, is hpprt3.aix.dfw.ibm.com.
The gateway is 9.19.169.202 and the subnet mask that will be used is
255.255.240.0.
- Two queues will be created in this example: hp5pcl
for ASCII text, and hp5ps for PostScript files. The GL queue was not
created, but could be if there are GL files to print.
- The PORT value should be 9100 for normal HP JetDirect
printers,
9101 for HP JetDirect EX3 port 2, and 9102 for port 3.
- Hit to add the queues and then exit smit.
STEP 8 without bootp After you choose option No. 2 and press Enter,
the following screen will appear.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Add a Print Queue
Type or select values in entry fields.
Press Enter AFTER making all desired changes.
[Entry Fields]
Description Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5Si/5Si
MX
Names of NEW print queues to add
PCL [hp5pcl]
PostScript [hp5ps]
HP-GL/2 []
Printer connection characteristics
* HOSTNAME of the JetDirect Card [hpprt3.aix.dfw.ibm.com]
* PORT [9102]
F1=Help F2=Refresh F3=Cancel
F4=List
F5=Reset F6=Command F7=Edit
F8=Image
F9=Shell F10=Exit Enter=Do
----------------------------------------------------------------
- The hostname for the printer hpprt3.aix.dfw.ibm.com should already
be in the /etc/hosts file or in the DNS server.
- The PORT value should be 9100 for normal HP JetDirect
printers,
and 9101 for HP JetDirect EX3 port 2, and 9102 for port 3.
- Two queues will be created in this example: hp5pcl
for ASCII text, and hp5ps for PostScript files. The GL queue was not
created, but could be if there are GL files to print.
- Press the Enter key to add the new queues.
- If the job sits in the queue with status "RUNNING"
("lpstat" command will show status) and does not print,
the JetDirect card is probably not booted up and never
received tftp packets.
- Common cause:
- Faulty cables or unterminated ethernet lines. If you have
any other hosts on the same net, verify that they can still
communicate with no errors. Check cables and termination.
- Can you ping the hostname? Can you ping the TCP/IP address
of the hostname? Check the IP address of the printer by
printing out a test page to see if the IP address is indeed
there on the printer. Then check to see if the IP address
is the same as the one you have in the "/etc/hosts" file.
- If you can ping the hostname, then try:
- What you type should get sent to the printer. This is an
example telnet session that printed to our printer.
mod590 /etc # telnet 150.1.1.4 9100
Trying...
Connected to 150.1.1.4.
Escape character is '^]'.
Hey guys, this is going to print!!!
^]
telnet> quit
Connection closed.
- This printed "Hey guys, this is going to print!!!" at
the printer.
- If printing out the test sheet and the IP address and subnet
mask are blank, then the card has not been configured. Find
the area under TCP/IP labeled bootp. It should say bootp in
progress. This means that the card is sending out boot packets
but is not getting packets back from the system. Unless there is
a problem with the packets that the Jet Direct card is sending,
this means that the system is not acknowledging the packets and
sending replies.
- Common cause:
- The hardware address was entered incorrectly. You can verify
the hardware address by examining the file "/etc/bootptab".
The "ha" field should match the hardware address printed out
in the test page. If this is incorrect, then change as
appropriate. Then at the AIX command line, type "inetimp"
to redigest the file and then type "refresh -s inetd" to refresh the
"inetd" daemon. Turn off/on printer (if card inside printer)
or turn off/on the JetDirect box (if external). If this does not
work, then remove the entry from "/etc/bootptab" file and
perform all the preceding steps in this document starting with STEP 3.
- If the above still did not work, then try running "bootpd"
daemon in debug mode. Do the following:
- a. Comment out the "bootps" line in "/etc/inetd.conf" file.
- b. Redigest "/etc/inetd.conf" again with "inetimp".
- c. Refresh "inetd" daemon with "refresh -s inetd".
- d. At AIX command line, type "bootpd -d -d -d -d -s".
- e. Turn off/on printer (if internal card) or turn off/on
JetDirect box (if external). This will cause the hardware
broadcast to start up.
- If all goes well you should see something like this:
- bootpd: bootptab mtime is Wed Oct 19 13:21:23 1994
- bootpd: reading "/etc/bootptab"
- bootpd: read 1 entries from "/etc/bootptab"
- bootpd: dumped 1 entries to "/etc/bootpd.dump".
Then hopefully you'll see something like this:
- bootpd: bootptab mtime is Wed Oct 19 13:21:23 1994
- bootpd: request from hardware address 080109463974
- bootpd: hardware address not found: 080109463974
- bootpd: Dats all folks...
- If you don't see this or if nothing else comes up then the system
is not seeing any hardware broadcast across the network.
You have a definite hardware problem on the network.
Check your network connections and settings.
- If you see the preceding, then the third line, "bootpd:
hardware address not found: 080109463974", is indicating
that you do not have an entry in the "/etc/bootptab" file
for the particular hardware address. Check your file
for the proper entry. Also check for
other entries that are outdated or unused and delete them.
- Make sure your subnet mask is set correctly. If your
subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 then you don't need an entry
for "sm=255.255.255.0" since this is assumed. However, if
your subnet mask is different--for example, 255.255.0.0--then
you definitely need an entry "sm=255.255.0.0" in your
/etc/bootptab file for the printer in question. You can use
"ifconfig <network type>" command to figure out your network
mask. For example, "ifconfig en0":
- en0: flags=2000063<UP,BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,RUNNING,NOECHO>
inet 150.1.1.1 netmask 0xffff0000 broadcast 150.1.255.255
- Note the subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 in this example.
- You could see a certain error from running bootpd:
- bind fail::socket name already in use
- bootpd:bind:
- This error indicates that you have another bootpd process
running on your system. Do a "ps -ef | grep bootp" to
get the PID of the bootp process presently running and do
a "kill -9 PID" to get rid of the process. Then retry the
bootp in debug mode again.
- Also note that with the external JetDirect box EX model,
there is an indicator LED light called "Fault". If this
light is on or is blinking, then you have a hardware problem
with the JetDirect. Please call Hewlett-Packard for hardware
help.
- Some printers accept more than one interface, serial
or parallel. Be sure that you have the interface set to
the one that you are using. This is especially true with
the external JetDirect.
- If you are having problems getting the printer working
with the BOOTP/TFTP server, try attaching the printer
DIRECTLY to the Ethernet card in the system.
After you get that working, set up the printer to use
the system as the BOOTP/TFTP server.
- To conserve resources, bootpd exits if it receives no request
for 15 minutes. It will restart when another request is
received. Therefore, you will not see it running all the time.
- Removing the virtual printer will not clean up the entry in
bootptab or the device file in /var/spool/lpd/pio/dev. You
must delete these yourself.
A customer did the following:
1. sent a control setup file to the printer
2. sent a file to use the control file settings
The file didn't use the control file settings.
- This is caused because the HP JetDirect card resets
between each job. This is necessary because the card is multiprotocol
and must reset to be ready for the next job.
- There is only one thing you need to do when you are using a token
ring network:
change the "ht" variable in "/etc/bootptab" for your particular
entry to "tr"; that is, "ht=tr". This is only done once you have
finished ALL the steps.
- Example of the setting in "/etc/bootptab" using the demonstration
example as token ring instead of ethernet:
----------------------------------------------------------------
hp4:ht=tr:ha=080109463974:ip=150.1.1.4:sm=255.255.255.0:gw=150.1.1.1:
----------------------------------------------------------------
- first field -- hostname (may be full domain name and probably should be)
- hd -- home directory
EF=http://www.flash.net/~laixsoft/
- sa -- boot server IP address
- gw -- gateways
- ha -- hardware address
- ht -- hardware type
- ip -- host IP address
- sm -- subnet mask
- tc -- template host (points to similar host entry)
- hn -- name switch
- bs -- boot image size
[ Doc Ref: 92031853517564 Publish Date: Mar. 29, 2001 4FAX Ref: 6439 ]