Aix Printer Tips: Printing to Lantronix Print/Terminal Servers

This document applies to AIX 3.2.5 and AIX 4.1 and later.

• 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.

• Line Micro Printer Server (LPS, LPS1-T, LPS1-2) The LPS 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.

1. 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.

2. 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 process (RTELPD) 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 flow is 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

AIX 4

1. smit mkpq
2. Select: remote ------- Printer Attached to Remote Host
3. Select: Local filtering before sending to print server
4. Select: Printer Manufacturer
5. Select: Printer Type
6. Fill in the Add a Remote Print Queue with Local Filtering menu
   • Queue Names - Enter names to use on AIX system
   • HOSTNAME of Remote Server - Enter Server Hostname
   • Name of QUEUE on remote server
     Enter queue on Lantronix Server ETS_xxxxxx_S1
   • Type of print spooler on remote server - BSD
     Be sure to change this from AIX.
   • Send PASS-THROUGH FLAG to queue - yes

7. Hit enter to create queues.

AIX 3.2

1. At the host prompt, type smit spooler.
2. Choose Manage Remote Printer Subsystem
3. Choose Client Services
4. Choose Remote Printer Queues
5. Choose Add a Remote Queue
6. Fill in the following fields:

   Add a Remote Queue
   AIX Prompt	Description	Example
   NAME of queue to add	Enter name to print to from AIX	ets_prt
   DESTINATION HOST for remote jobs	Hostname of Lantronix Server	ets_host
   Pathname of the SHORT FORM FILTER for queue ....	Script for status	/usr/lpd/bsdshort
   Pathname of the LONG FORM FILTER for queue ....	Script for status	/usr/lpd/bsdlong
   Name of QUEUE on remote printer	Enter queue on server	ETS_xxxxxx_S1

   
   
   

7. Hit enter or DO to add the queue

The rtel filter is supplied by Lantronix. Because it is a filter, it takes data from stdin (standard in), and outputs the data to stdout (standard out). 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. Because of this, this is unsupported and supplied on a best effort basis.

Creating a virtual printer using RTEL at AIX 4

Follow these steps:

1. Type: touch /dev/rtel1 to create a lock file. Use a separate lock file for each server.
2. Type: smit mkpq
3. Select:

   file                 File (in /dev directory)

4. Select printer manufacturer.
5. Select printer type.
6. Name of existing FILE in /dev directory: Enter rtel1
7. Enter queue name. Example: lanprt
8. Change mo attribute:
   • 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 man pages of the rtel program. Note that mo must have the full path name of rtel and the options that point at the server and port.
9. This assumes you can print to the server directly with rtel -s xx -p ##.

AIX 3.2 virtual printer using rtel

1. Type: touch /dev/rtel1 to create a lock file
   Use a separate lock file for each server.
2. Type: mkvirprt
3. Select: Printer or Plotter attached to local host
4. Enter: rtel1 at prompt for device name. trust me
5. Select the printer type
6. Enter the queue name
7. Change mo attribute:
   • 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 man pages of the rtel program. Note that mo must have the full path name of rtel and the options that point at the server and port.
8. This assumes you can print to the server directly with rtel -s xx -p ##.

The following discussion from Lantronix details creating a named pipe with a script. Once this is done, a special file is created in /dev that can be used for adding a virtual printer at AIX 3, or for adding a queue to a file at AIX 4. This avoids having to modify the virtual printer as described above and provides a nice interface. A named pipe is similar to a device driver special file because everything that is sent to that file is read by a program and in this case sent on to the printer.