Do you have to have PSM installed across multiple AIX Clients?
ITEM: RTA000145474
Q:
ABSTRACT: Multiple questions on PSM
SEARCH ARG: psm client aix
TOPIC THREAD: PRINT
AFP_UTILITIES
PSM
..
I recently gave a presentation to customer on PSM and many questions
came out of it. Below are the three that I can't seem to find the
answers to. Can you please help?
1) If I have multiple RS/6000 (AIX) systems, but I have all my print-
ers that I want PSM controlled on one, must I have PSM also install-
ed on the AIX boxes that would have the AIX clients? All systems
are on the same network. What about DCE?
2) This customer has MANY PCL printers defined on their system. They
are sure that many of these printers don't physically exist anymore,
but don't have a way to determine this easily. If I define all the
printers to PSM, is there a way (log or something) that I can use
to track if the printers are ever printed to? If I can do this, then
after a designated period of time, the printer can be deleted if no
print has gone to it.
A:
1) You certainly don't HAVE to have psm installed on the other AIX
clients. You may use lpr/lpd (remote queues) to send the jobs to
PSM on the PSM/AIX server. However this would not give you the full
benefit of PSM. If you did install PSM on the clients, then you
would have full use of PSM (through the GUI or command line) and it
would be transparent to the user/operator which machine the printers
are attached or driven by. This would create a true distributed
environment. Of course to have PSM installed, DCE must also be
installed.
2) I don't think there is an easy way to do it either way you go. About
the only thing I can think of is to grep for the object name in the
errorlog for the supervisor. I'm also assuming that you are
migrating the AIX queues to PSM (as physical printers). If this is
the case, then I would think it would be easier to test the AIX
print queue prior to migrating it. Another way would be to retain
ALL print jobs, then check the retained jobs to see what printers are
being used. The down side of this is it would require a large amount
of DASD.
Q:
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying in #1. Let me ask some more
questions. Let's say I have 3 RS/6000s (A, B, and C). All my printers
will be attached to C, and I'll put PSM there. I may need a end user on
RS/6000 A to submit a job. If all RS/6000s are on same network, isn't
there a way to have AIX client code to run on A without having to instal
the whole PSM code? What if I have a windows user on B that also wants
to submit a job to print on a printer on C, are you telling me that un-
less I want to do lpr/lpd from A (or B) to C, that I need 3 copies of
PSM? I thought there was some a type of gateway function that would al-
low this.
A:
Let's first identify what you mean by PSM. There are 2 modules, or
filesets for PSM: 1) psm.client, which is the psmd daemon, also known
as PSM client code. And 2) psmgui.rte, which is the GUI or graphical
interface. The psm.client is the mimimum required for PSM to run,
because it is the psmd daemon (This would be on system C in your
scenario). The GUI isn't required, even on system C to drive/manage
your printers. If you want to submit jobs from system A or B TO C, you
could either:
1) Use lpr/lpd. This would involve setting up "remote AIX queues" on
systems A and B (assuming they are both RS/6000's). In this case there
is NO PSM code installed on A or B at all. Only C. The jobs are
submitted to the AIX queue on system A, for instance. This queue then
sends the job to system C, using the LPD protocol. The LPD subsystem
receives the job and in turn routes it to the logical printer.
2) The second option is to install psm.client (PSM Client code) on both
systems A and B (again assuming they are both RS/6000's). This is so
psmd will be running on all 3 machines, with only the GUI installed on
system C, if you want it installed on system C (again, not required).
You would then define all your objects (logical printers, queues, and
physical printers) in PSM on system C. Once these objects are defined
in PSM, which will also be in the DCE namespace, you will only need to
define systems A and B, as additional PSM/DCE clients. 1 PSM license
buys you 1 supervisor and 1 spooler. So in your case you will only
need one license, but PSM Client code will have to be installed on all
machines. As for Windows users (on PC) there is PSM client code that
can be installed for a client on those machines as well. This code is
also included with PSM and part of the license.
I hope this answers your questions. Please let me know if you have
further questions.
Thank you for using WWQ&A.
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:
psm aix dce client windows rs/6000 lpr lpd host system
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000145474 ITEM: RTA000145474
Dated: 01/1999 Category: PSMAIX
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