Contents
About this document
Product overview
Two ways to print
Printing to the Lantronix server as a remote printer
Adding a remote queue for a Lantronix printer
Printing with RTEL Reverse TELnet
Using the named pipe
This document describes how to print to printers attached to a
Lantronix terminal server. Two methods are described. The first
method uses the standard AIX remote queue while the second method
uses a reverse telnet program.
This document applies to AIX Versions 4.x.
- ETS4P Terminal Server is a flexible, terminal server with four serial and four
parallel ports.
- The Lantronix CoBox Serial Server provides exceptional
functionality for users with TCP/IP applications requiring up
to two serial ports.
- Ethernet Terminal Servers (ETS8 and ETS16) connect computing equipment to an
Ethernet network. This includes personal computers, terminals, modems, printers,
and even other devices that were not built to be networked. The ETS supports
simultaneous serial connections to each of its ports and a single Ethernet
connection. It is configurable and can offer its attached devices as services to
the network as well as provide connections to other nodes on the network.
- Ethernet Printer Servers (EPS1, EPS2, EPS4, EPS12, LPS, and MPS) are multi-protocol
print servers that provide shared network access to printers for a variety of network
protocols and operating systems. They are different from the ETS units in that
they cannot be used to initiate connections to hosts. They can only accept connections
from hosts. They are intended solely for outputting data to locally attached devices.
- The Line Micro Printer Server (LPS, LPS1-T, LPS1-2) family includes the
LPS1-T, a 10BASE-T micro print server, and the LPS1-2, a 10BASE2 version. These
products offer an affordable solution for networks running any of the most popular
networking protocols.
The LPS1 products attach directly to a printer's parallel port
and support TCP/IP, IPX, NetBIOS/NetBEUI and LAT protocols. With its
market-leading low price, the LPS1 family offers a comprehensive set
of features including multiprotocol support at a price that competes
with single protocol print servers.
- Print from AIX to server as remote printer.
LPR is recommended (by Lantronix) as the method of printing.
It is easy to set up and requires no additional host software.
- Print from AIX using RTEL backend.
- RTEL backend filter
The RTEL backend filter is a program that interfaces with the
host-based spooling system. It receives data from
the spooling system and sends the data to the ETS. The advantages
of the backend filter are that the banner page is
printed at the front of a job, multiple copies can be printed,
and simple reformatting such as to
conversion and tab expansion can be performed. However, the
backend filter does not support any complicated
output filtering or conversions.
- RTEL named pipe interface
The RTEL Pipe Daemon (RTELPD) process uses a UNIX named pipe as its
interface to the host. This allows any
host- or user-supplied backend filter to be used for
printing. Any data that is sent into the pipe is simply moved to
the ETS. However, the data flows one way from the host system to
the ETS, and this approach does require one
RTELPD daemon process for each print queue configured.
Notes about LPR
- This should work using standard remote printing protocols.
- If the queue goes down, extend the rembak timeout.
To increase the rembak timeout, place the timeout
period in minutes in the Backend TIMEOUT period (minutes), field when creating
the print queue. If the queue is already created, add the text -T5 to the end of the backend = line
in the /etc/qconfig file.
- There are some problems with the status at early AIX Version 4.1. There
is, however, a fix to AWK and the problem no longer exists at AIX Version 4.2.
The error message states that the line is too long and cannot be parsed.
- Do not set the Lantronix server to add header pages or they will come after
the job. This will be the default if you use the lpr command
to print. There are two solutions to this. 1.) At AIX Version 4, use local formatting.
2.) On the Lantronix server turn off header pages.
- If banners are not needed, they can be disabled using the following ETS commands:
- The Lantronix server cannot print multiple copies with the command lpr -#x.
- By default, a formfeed is added to the end of each LPD job to force a page eject
on laser printers. If this formfeed is not wanted, it can be
disabled using the following ETS commands:
- At AIX Version 4, formatting can be done on the host with this option.
AIX Version 4 supports local formatting of remote print jobs using a backend
similar to, but with more robustness than, the one supplied above. The
steps to add the remote queue are as follows:
- Enter smit mkpq.
- Select remote ------- Printer Attached to Remote Host.
- Select Local filtering before sending to print server.
- Select Printer Manufacturer.
- Select Printer Type.
- Fill in the Add a Remote Print Queue with Local Filtering menu.
- At Queue Names, enter the names to be used on the AIX system
- At HOSTNAME of Remote Server, enter the server host name
- At Name of QUEUE on remote server, enter the queue on Lantronix
Server ETS_xxxxxx_S1
- At Type of print spooler on remote server, enter BSD.
Be sure to change this from AIX.
- Set the Send PASS-THROUGH FLAG to queue to yes.
- Set the Backend TIME OUT period (minutes) to 5.
- Press Enter to create queues.
The rtel filter is supplied by Lantronix. To obtain the filter, contact Lantronix or download it from
http://www.lantronix.com/products/software/rtel.
Because it is a filter,
it takes data from standard in (stdin), and outputs the data to standard
out (stdout). This means that it should work well as the output filter for a
virtual printer. The output filter is designated by the mo attribute
of a virtual printer. The following describes how this should work,
although some details might be missing. As a result, this procedure is
unsupported and supplied on a best effort basis.
Creating a virtual printer using RTEL
Follow these steps:
- Enter touch /dev/rtel1 to create a lock file.
Use a separate lock file for each server.
- Enter smit mkpq.
- Select file File
(in the /dev directory)
- Select Printer Manufacturer.
- Select Printer Type.
- At Name of existing FILE in /dev directory enter rtel1.
- Enter the queue name, for example, lanprt.
- Change the mo attribute. Enter:
chvirprt -q lanprt -d rtel1 -a "mo=/usr/local/bin/rtel -s lanh -p 2"
The flags -s for server and -p for port should be verified
with the manpages of the RTEL program. mo must have the full
pathname of RTEL and the options that point at the server and port.
- This assumes you can print to the server directly with the command rtel -s xx -p ##.
If the LPR method of printing is not adequate for some applications,
use the Lantronix RTEL as discussed above. One of the options
with this software is to set it up as a named pipe. The details for
doing this are supplied in the README file that comes with the RTEL
software and is supported by Lantronix.
Return to the beginning of the document.
[ Doc Ref: 92031885713466 Publish Date: Feb. 05, 2001 4FAX Ref: 6501 ]