[9fans] Newbie question on printing

[9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Robert Raschke]

Hi,

since I'm going nowhere with my attempts at getting something printed
on my new network printer (Samsung CLP550N) I'm pretty sure I am
missing something simple (as is usually the case with P9 setup).

I have tried to get an understanding of how networked printers are
meant to communicate, but googling gives me no really useful links.  I
have read about the LPD protocol, but that appears to be for queueing
and spooling on a host machine.  I have found lots of references to
port 9100 and JetDirect, but no actual details of what that is and how
the protocol works.  Apparently some network printers allow FTP to
pring, but the CLP550N just gives me connection disallowed.

I added the printer as cpl550n into my /lib/ndb/local, and I can
access it's web interface via port 80 fine and dandy.

I have tried enabling tcp515 in /rc/bin/services on my
auth/cpu/fossil/venti server (called prunelle) and added a line like
this to my /sys/lib/lp/devices:


clp550n	robbys-room	prunelle	clp550n	-	post+600dpi	generic	lpdspool	lpd	-	-	FIFO

Using that, I get some activity in the queue and log directories, but
no printing.  I'm guessing this is due to me actually not having said
how to get to the printer proper.  So, I tried something like this:

clp550n	robbys-room	prunelle	tcp!clp550n!9100	81920	post+600dpi			generic		generic		generic		generic		tcppost		FIFO

But now I am getting timeouts from tcpostio; so my guess is that port
9100 isn't quite right or the protocol has shifted.

Does anyone have any pointers as to where I could get some information
on how to communicate with network printers.  Something where I could
telnet and try out stuff.  (I does apparently talk IPP, but there have
been discouraging remarks about that protocol in the past.)

Or alternatively, has anyone got a Samsung CLP working and would like
to let me know their setup details?

Thank you for any help,
Robby

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Steve Simon]

I print to lasers which are connected via HP jet-direct boxes using:

/sys/lib/lp/devices:
slp_a3 SLP_A3 slp-oh-a3 A4_LPQ  -  post+duplex+nohead  generic  lpdspool  lpd  -  - FIFO

/lib/ndb/local:
sys=slp-oh-a3 ip=172.19.73.14

The jet-direct boxes use the BSD printing protocol which
is documented in rfc1179, I have not heard of printers using ftp but
its possible.

The easiest test is to try 'lp -q' (query queue) and see if you get
somthing like this:

	larch% lp -q
	transmission log:
	: 100.00% sent
	78589 bytes sent, status: waiting for end of job
	78589 bytes sent, status: end of job

	printer queue:
	connecting to tcp!slp-oh-a3!printer
	 trying from port 721...connected
	JetDirect lpd: no jobs queued on this port

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Russ Cox]

On 7/26/05, Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:
> I print to lasers which are connected via HP jet-direct boxes using:
> 
> /sys/lib/lp/devices:
> slp_a3 SLP_A3 slp-oh-a3 A4_LPQ  -  post+duplex+nohead  generic  lpdspool  lpd  -  - FIFO

An even better solution.  Try this first.  The difference between
this and your original devices line is that this one uses the
printer's name as the "spooler machine", i.e. the address to
send the job to.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Robert Raschke]

> On 7/26/05, Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:
>> I print to lasers which are connected via HP jet-direct boxes using:
>> 
>> /sys/lib/lp/devices:
>> slp_a3 SLP_A3 slp-oh-a3 A4_LPQ  -  post+duplex+nohead  generic  lpdspool  lpd  -  - FIFO
> 
> An even better solution.  Try this first.  The difference between
> this and your original devices line is that this one uses the
> printer's name as the "spooler machine", i.e. the address to
> send the job to.
> 
> Russ

Steve, Russ, thank you very much. I now have
clp550n_ps	robbys-room	clp550n	A4_LPQ	-	post+600dpi+nohead	generic	lpdspool	lpd	-	-	FIFO

and from 'lp -D -dclp550n_ps -q' I get

grep '^clp550n_ps[ 	]' /sys/lib/lp/devices
bind -b /sys/lib/lp/stat /bin
exec lpd
echo transmission log:
transmission log:
test -r /sys/lib/lp/log/clp550n_ps.st
echo printer queue:
printer queue:
/386/bin/aux/lpdsend -q -dA4_LPQ clp550n
connecting to tcp!clp550n!printer
 trying from port 721...connected
PortThru lpd: No Jobs on this queue
exit ''

Lovely.

I have two simple questions, so I can understand what is happening.
The A4_LPQ, what does that do?  It is in the OUT_DEV field but ain't a
device, and just guessing I would assume it names the queue to use.
Is that corerct?  Could that be any text, or does the LPD in the
printer have ideas on how to name and handle queues?

Second, is it good practice to have the machine name of the printer
(/lib/ndb/local entry) be different from the /sys/lib/lp/devices
printer name?  I know that I can add more "virtual" printers to turn
on duplex and color and what not.

I can't actually verify that a page got printed, as I'm doing this
remotely via a drawterm.  But maybe I'll have a page sitting there for
me when I get home tonight.

Thanks again,
Robby

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Russ Cox]

> clp550n_ps      robbys-room     clp550n A4_LPQ  -       post+600dpi+nohead      generic lpdspool        lpd     -       -       FIFO

> I have two simple questions, so I can understand what is happening.
> The A4_LPQ, what does that do?  It is in the OUT_DEV field but ain't a
> device, and just guessing I would assume it names the queue to use.
> Is that correct?  

Yes.

> Could that be any text, or does the LPD in the
> printer have ideas on how to name and handle queues?

In theory you should set it to "raw", but in practice it never seems to matter.
http://tinyurl.com/dwul2

> Second, is it good practice to have the machine name of the printer
> (/lib/ndb/local entry) be different from the /sys/lib/lp/devices
> printer name?  I know that I can add more "virtual" printers to turn
> on duplex and color and what not.

I'm with you on this one.  I prefer keeping the names the same,
but maybe the _ps suffix is common elsewhere.  The rest of the
system doesn't care.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Jack Johnson]

On 7/26/05, Russ Cox <russcox@gmail.com> wrote:
> Modern Unix printing is a catastrophe.  Plan 9 printing is only a mess.

What's your take on IPP?

I've done CUPS -> Plan 9 and vice versa (the latter being easier) via
LPD, but I've always found that IPP in any of its flavors seems to be
less painful (though MS clearly has trouble thinking out of the box on
this one).

My big thing is that CUPS specifically does a decent job of tackling
the two problems with any printer:

 - What the hell can it do
 - What format do I send the data

Its answer is to get the PostScript Printer Description via HTTP, then
(ideally) either handoff PostScript or use GhostScript to translate
the PostScript into the proper page description language and then hand
it off.  It will do raw print queues, too, which can be handy when you
have Windows clients or need to manage PCL-only printers.

The big upside is that for systems that don't share a namespace, you
can pretty easily share printers and printer configurations and still
have client- or application-specific preferences that take advantage
of printer-specific features, without the sort-and-staple queue,
double-sided-color queue, etc.

Server-side can be a mess (and occasionally a catastrophe), but
client-side is extremely clean.

> but maybe the _ps suffix is common elsewhere.

If memory serves, Brother, Canon and the old HPs tend to have local
LPD queues specific to the page description language, so you'll see
_ps and _pcl suffixes.  Usually there's a queue that's just "lp" that
will auto-detect, but some people like to use the other named queues
to filter jobs that aren't in the correct PDL, especially where buggy
applications/jobs can cause the printer to behave poorly.

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Russ Cox]

On 7/26/05, Jack Johnson <knapjack@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/26/05, Russ Cox <russcox@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Modern Unix printing is a catastrophe.  Plan 9 printing is only a mess.
> 
> What's your take on IPP?

I don't care which protocol is used on the network.  They all seem
simple enough.  It's the software on the ends that is the disaster.
CUPS in particular is enormous and seems to prevent me from 
printing more than it enables me to print.

My worst experience with CUPS was on Mac OS X.  I was trying
to configure the printing via the GUI (I didn't even know that CUPS
was underneath), and CUPS kept seg faulting.  It took hours 
before I figured that was why the printer service kept ending up
in the "off" state.

I admit that being able to expose printer capabilities to clients 
and have painless configuration is a great goal, and for Windows+CUPS
maybe it gets there, but sitting on Unix all I want to do is send
postscript and see the resulting pages come out of the printer.
And that is too hard far too often.

Amazingly, I think the Plan 9 lp is actually getting simpler as time
goes on.  Slowly.

Russ

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Ronald G. Minnich]

I still think the one thing Windows really nailed is printing. Browse for
a print server. Find the printer by name. Oh, server says, you don't have
a driver? Here's one from the print server.  Done. You're up. None of this 
browsing of an out-of-date pile of files to find the printer that almost, 
but not quite, matches the printer. 

Overall, I've never used anything I like quite as much as that. Not even 
OSX can compare -- OSX is just about as painful as any standard Unix for 
adding a new printer. 

I'm sure that, being Windows, there are lots of flaws and holes, but 
overall it's less painful than anything else I've seen.

ron

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Jim McKie]

Agreed. I started trying to print things on Unix systems about 1976
and I'd still be pulling my hair out if I didn't deliberately keep it short
for just this reason.

Just before I left for vacation I tried to print from the latest Firefox on
Linux.
The results were initially lpd forking continuously, then files disappearing
into a black hole. I searched and searched in the FAQs, knowledge-bases,
etc.
and I found plenty of people with the same problem. The answers were allways
"install these few dozen of packages" and the results were always "that
didn't
help". I can print from every other utility I've tried on the system, why
would
Firefox require anything to be done?

--jim

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ronald G. Minnich" <rminnich@lanl.gov>
To: "Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs" <9fans@cse.psu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 12:07 PM
Subject: Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing


> I still think the one thing Windows really nailed is printing. Browse for
> a print server. Find the printer by name. Oh, server says, you don't have
> a driver? Here's one from the print server.  Done. You're up. None of this
> browsing of an out-of-date pile of files to find the printer that almost,
> but not quite, matches the printer.
>
> Overall, I've never used anything I like quite as much as that. Not even
> OSX can compare -- OSX is just about as painful as any standard Unix for
> adding a new printer.
>
> I'm sure that, being Windows, there are lots of flaws and holes, but
> overall it's less painful than anything else I've seen.
>
> ron
>

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Jack Johnson]

On 7/26/05, Jim McKie <jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> I can print from every other utility I've tried on the system, why
> would Firefox require anything to be done?

It's easy to interpret this as a rhetorical question. :)

But, sometimes you'll see Firefox compiled with XPrint extensions,
which I've never found to be a good thing.  I think the Linux download
off their Web site is compiled this way.

Some of the vendors try to make their own binaries as friendly as
possible.  I've had good luck with Fedora and Ubuntu.

But really, should anyone be subjected to this? :)

Maybe it saves trees.

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Ronald G. Minnich]

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005, Jack Johnson wrote:

> But, sometimes you'll see Firefox compiled with XPrint extensions,
> which I've never found to be a good thing.  I think the Linux download
> off their Web site is compiled this way.

what does XPrint mean, then? Ex-Print? 

you just explained why firefox won't print for me ... 

ron

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[andrey mirtchovski]

> I can print from every other utility I've tried on the system, why would
> Firefox require anything to be done?
> 
> --jim

i have had a similar problem with acrobat reader -- it turned out it
was using /usr/bin/lpr instead of /usr/local/bin/lpr.  one is lpr, the
other is lprng.  one works, the other doesn't.  trying to figure out
which configuration utility belongs to which lpr is quite a bit of
fun, as they're aptly named "lprsetup.sh" and "lprtool"

of course all that lpr hilarity ensued only after i had figured how to
prevent acroread from crashing on startup with:

% acroread
Warning: charset "UTF-8" not supported
Segmentation Fault
%

i wish i had something witty to put here, but this stuff just makes me
sad.

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Jack Johnson]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2432 bytes --]

On 7/26/05, Ronald G. Minnich <rminnich@lanl.gov> wrote:
> Overall, I've never used anything I like quite as much as that. Not even
> OSX can compare -- OSX is just about as painful as any standard Unix for
> adding a new printer.

The trick with OSX is to not use it as Apple intended.

If you have a single CUPS-based print server (OSX or otherwise), set
your ACLs and turn browsing on, it'll just happen.

At home I have a Linux box with a crappy DeskJet 400, and from our
iBooks I think the only thing I had to do client-side (using Terminal)
was to turn browsing on.  As long as the server is on, if you're in
the house the printer shows up on the list.  If you're at work or on
the road, it doesn't.  Magic.

It took longer to sift the PPD on the server to force black and white
as the default than it did to get reliable, convenient printing.  But
stay away from Apple's GUI.  Even on OSX I use the local Web interface
if I have to add a new printer (which isn't fun for newbies, either,
but at least you know what you're going to get).  Should be
http://localhost:631.

What I dislike about Windows printing is that the client shouldn't
need a driver.  Every client should be able to generate PCL or
PostScript or HP-GL and have some convenient way to find out what
printer features are available.  I've done several Windows printing
hacks rolling my own PostScript miniport drivers that just uses the
Windows built-in PostScript engine and loads the correct PPD for the
printer, and though setting the printer preferences isn't as intuitive
as with some other drivers, it's consistent, and you can get huge
stability by having just a single (Microsoft-written) print driver
loaded.

In fact, here's one I use often, Adobe's Acrobat Distiller PPD omitted
(though freely available on their Web site).  At work we use Linux
print queues to generate PDFs server-side and mail them back to the
users, and most PostScript printers won't let you put color ink corner
to corner.  So, Adobe's PPD, Microsoft's driver.  One INF and one PPD
file and away you go.  Change the strings and the PPD for the printer
of your choice.

Filename changed for your protection. :)

It would be relatively easy for a vendor like MS to one-up CUPS, clean
up their print dialogs, keep PPDs or their equivalent on the printer
share and really have a unified print driver, at least client-side.

-Jack

[-- Attachment #2: ADIST5-inf.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 1468 bytes --]

[Version]
Signature="$Windows NT$"
Provider="Me"
LayoutFile=layout.inf
ClassGUID={4D36E979-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Class=Printer

;
; The Manufacturer section lists all of the manufacturers that we will
; display in the Dialog box

[Manufacturer]
"Adobe"

[Adobe]
"Acrobat Distiller" = ADIST5.PPD, Acrobat_Distiller

;
; Installer Sections
;
; These sections control file installation, and reference all files that
; need to be copied. If the section name will be assumed to be the driver
; file, unless there is an explicit DriverFile section listed.
;

[ADIST5.PPD]
CopyFiles=@ADIST5.PPD,PSCRIPT
DataFile=ADIST5.PPD
DataSection=PSCRIPT_DATA

; Copy Sections
;
; Lists of files that are actually copied. These sections are referenced
; from the installer sections, above. Only create a section if it contains
; two or more files (if we only copy a single file, identify it in the
; installer section, using the @filename notation)
;

[PSCRIPT]
PSCRIPT5.DLL
PS5UI.DLL
PSCRIPT.HLP
PSCRIPT.NTF

[PSCRIPT_DATA]
DriverFile=PSCRIPT5.DLL
ConfigFile=PS5UI.DLL
HelpFile=PSCRIPT.HLP

[DestinationDirs]
DefaultDestDir=66000

[SourceDisksNames]
4 = %Floppy%,,,""

[SourceDisksFiles]
ADIST5.PPD   = 4,,,,,,,11,3

;
; Localizable Strings
;
[Strings]
Floppy="Adobe Acrobat Distiller PPD Disk"
CLASSNAME="Printer"
PJL_MONITOR="PJL Language Monitor,PJLMON.DLL"
PS_MONITOR="PostScript Language Monitor,PSMON.DLL" 

Re: [9fans] Newbie question on printing

[Russ Cox]

Modern Unix printing is a catastrophe.  Plan 9 printing is only a mess.

Lpd is in fact for spooling and queueing on a host machine.
If your printer were shared among lots of people and had
some machine handling its queue, then you'd want to use the
"vogon" example line in /sys/lib/lp/devices:

> clp550n robbys-room     prunelle        clp550n -       post+600dpi     generic lpdspool        lpd     -       -       FIFO

That would print to the spool named clp550n on the machine prunelle.
If your own machine is named prunelle, then that's just going to make
a nice loop that never gets to the printer.

> clp550n robbys-room     prunelle        tcp!clp550n!9100        81920   post+600dpi                     generic         generic         generic         generic         tcppost         FIFO
> 
> But now I am getting timeouts from tcpostio; so my guess is that port
> 9100 isn't quite right or the protocol has shifted.

This is very close to correct.  Port 9100 is the JetDirect port
and is what you want.  It's not clear to me that tcppost is doing
the right thing, though.  Most likely it's for a printer protocol from
an earlier time.

Try putting this script in /sys/lib/lp/daemon/jetdirect and see if it
works better.

#!/bin/rc
generic '{aux/download -f -H/sys/lib/postscript/font -mfontmap -plw+ <
$LPDEST/$FILE(1); echo -n `{unicode 4}} | con $OUTDEV >[2]$PRINTLOG'
'{cat <{echo -d$LPDEST -pnoproc -M^$SCHEDLINE(1) -u^$SCHEDLINE(2)}
$LPDEST/$FILE(1);sleep 5} | lpsend.rc $DEST_HOST' ''

(This is just tcppost except that I've replaced 
"aux/tcpostio -b^$SPEED $OUTDEV" with "con $OUTDEV"
and added a ^D to the end of the file being sent.)

Failing that, you might try and see if

{lp -dstdout file.ps; echo -n `{unicode 4}} | con tcp!clp550n!9100 

actually does the right thing.  It should.
Once we get to a script that works for jetdirect I'll add
it to the distribution.

Russ