Linux-Networking Digest #210, Volume #11 Thu, 20 May 99 03:13:52 EDT
Contents:
Appletalk printing + netatalk + Linux:URL + text ("Kevin Cullis")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 10:37:26 -0600
From: "Kevin Cullis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.appletalk
Subject: Appletalk printing + netatalk + Linux:URL + text
http://www.giub.unibe.ch/~eugster/appleprint.html
AppleTalk, AppleShare and Linux: Printing
========================================================================
How to setup the printer using AppleTalk
========================================================================
As a Linux user, you want to get access to a Mac printer like a LaserWriter
sitting with its EtherTalk adapter on the network. As a Mac user, you want
to get acces to any printer accessible from Linux. To set up such a service
under Linux, you have to follow the same procedure in both cases. After
having compiled and installed the AppleTalk software netatalk (if you did
not do that read Anders Brownworth's atalk installation guide first!), you
probably already started all the daemons using rc.atalk in your /etc
directory. However, make sure, the AppleTalk service is really working
before trying to configure your printer. The version of netatalk I'm using
is 1.3.3 with all patches described in Anders Brownworth's installation
guide. I've been told that the path to the netatalk filters has changed in
newer versions.
1. Get my AppleTalk zone
Type /usr/local/atalk/bin/getzones to see whether all the AppleTalk zones
are visible to your Linux box. You should see at least one name which is
your local zone, otherwise it is very likely that your AppleTalk services
are not working propperly. I get something like this (only the first few
lines shown):
������� Pingo$ /usr/local/atalk/bin/getzones | more
������� VLSB
������� LSB-Integrative Biology
������� LSB-Biology Library
������� LSB-Herbaria
������� LSB-UCMP
������� LSB-MVZ
������� Vanishing Packets
������� MIP
������� Barker Hall
With the command line option you find out which is your zone:
������� Pingo$ /usr/local/atalk/bin/getzones -m
������� VLSB
������� Pingo$
So my local zone is VLSB, the complete list of all local zones can be
obtained using the -l option (in case your printer is not in your zone, you
need to know the exact name of the zone).
2. Find out the name of the printer
If you only want to make a local UNIX printer available to AppleShare
clients, skip this step and go directly to step 3. First we have to know how
names are defined under AppleTalk Internet. This is very similar to what you
know from your Linux box. The names are composed in the form
object:type@zone. If you do not care about the name of your local zone, use
@*. So, to find all objects in your zone, type /usr/local/atalk/bin/nbplkup,
which will yield a huge list containing entries like the following example:
Pingo$ /usr/local/atalk/bin/nbplkup |more
�������� Sun ValleyUs Macintosh:Macintosh IIsi���������� 12398.245:253
�������� Sun ValleyUs Macintosh:Workstation������������� 12398.245:4
������ IB Instructional Support:� Power Macintosh������� 12398.196:253
������ IB Instructional Support:Workstation������������� 12398.196:4
����������������� centris 660AV:� Macintosh������������� 12398.51:253
����������������� centris 660AV:Workstation������������� 12398.51:4
���������� Chapin Lab vx - JoeC:Macintosh IIvx���������� 12398.101:253
���������� Chapin Lab vx - JoeC:Workstation������������� 12398.101:4
������������� Pingo Mac Printer:LaserWriter������������� 12398.164:129
��������� Pingo Default Printer:LaserWriter������������� 12398.164:128
������������������������� Pingo:AFPServer��������������� 12398.164:130
������������������������� Pingo:netatalk���������������� 12398.164:4
������������������������� Pingo:Workstation������������� 12398.164:4
��������������������� Lucicutia:AFPServer��������������� 12398.123:248
���������� Theobald Chapin, III:LaserWriter������������� 12398.73:191
If you only want to know specific object types, like LaserWriters, you have
to use /usr/local/atalk/bin/nbplkup :LaserWriter. Make sure you include the
colon to indicate that you are looking for a type called LaserWriter. The
word need not include capital letters, but you are not allowed to omit the
spaces. Thus, e.g. to look for Macintosh IIvx you need to put the type name
into quotes:
Pingo$ /usr/local/atalk/bin/nbplkup� :"Macintosh IIvx"
���������� Chapin Lab vx - JoeC:Macintosh IIvx���������� 12398.101:253
Pingo$
Ok. To make it short: I want to print from my Linux box to the LaserWriter
named Theobald Chapin, III. Before you try to set up printcap for your
printspooler, rather make a first check, whether the printer is accessible
and your printing comes out as you expect.
Type /usr/local/atalk/bin/papstatus -p "Theobald Chapin, III" (note that the
quotes only are needed to tell your Unix shell that Theobald Chapin, III is
actually only one argument, not three), and you should get something like
status: idle
If not, go back and see whether your AppleTalk really works (maybe the
daemon was not started? Check with ps -xa | grep atalkd and ps -xa | grep
afpd whether those daemons are present). Since the LaserWriter is expecting
PostScript files, you should have a PostScript file handy for a short test.
My file's name is test.eps, and I can send it directly to Theobald Chapin,
III by invoking the AppleShare print client directly:
/usr/local/atalk/bin/pap -p "Theobald Chapin, III":LaserWriter@VLSB test.eps
Note that I included the zone name just to make sure everything is working
fine. If your print job comes out (you will get a status message every
second or so if somebody else is using the printer at the same moment. Watch
how the response comes from your printer and what it does when it starts
printing your file). If you encounter any trouble, use aecho to find out
about AppleTalk objects in the same way you would do using ping over TCP/IP
(hit Ctrl-C to stop aecho):
/usr/local/atalk/bin/aecho "Theobald Chapin, III":LaserWriter@VLSB
14 bytes from 12398.73: aep_seq=0. time=15. ms
14 bytes from 12398.73: aep_seq=1. time=14. ms
14 bytes from 12398.73: aep_seq=2. time=14. ms
14 bytes from 12398.73: aep_seq=3. time=14. ms
----12398.73 AEP Statistics----
5 packets sent, 4 packets received, 20% packet loss
round-trip (ms)� min/avg/max = 14/14/15
Pingo$
You should only have lost the last packet when you hit Ctrl-C, otherwise
something's wrong with your connection.
3. Setting up your Linux print service
There will be two steps. First, you make sure you can print from Linux to
your printer, and second, you make sure this printer is available for
AppleShare clients.
�Thus, to be more clear: you will first set up your printer as a Unix
printer accessible for the lpd printer daemon (sections 3.1 through 3.2) and
then you make it available for other users in the AppleTalk zone (section
3.3), which is optional, of course.
�Many people are confused about the setup for two reasons:
(1) If an AppleTalk printer is already available in the AppleTalk zone, Mac
users can directly connect to it. Thus, there is no need for a print spooler
on a Linux box. However, I am a Linux user and want to have access to this
AppleTalk printer, and thus my description given here does exactly that:
allow Linux users to print on an AppleTalk printer.
(2) If your printer is a local printer attached to the parallel port of the
Linux box (eg. to /dev/lp1), there are some changes for the printcap file. I
will give you an example of a setup with a local printer which I have not
tested myself but was sent to me by another user. See section 3.4 for this
and check out the detailed information given by Mike Pearson and Bill
McGonigle on using Ghostscript together with Netatalk.
3.1 Configuring your /etc/printcap
If your printer already is capable of printing a file using a command like
Pingo$ lpr -P lp test.eps
then you can skip this first part of step 3. Otherwise, be root and go into
your /etc directory to edit printcap. Use the man page of printcap for all
details. I will only describe how to set up the LaserWriter so that it works
together with the Linux lpr command. Add an entry for your printer to the
printcap file. I have only the LaserWriter defined, and my entry looks like
this:
lp|Pingo LaserWriter|Theobald Chapin, III:\
������� :sd=/usr/spool/theobald:\
������� :lp=/dev/null:\
������� :pl#63:pw#85:\
������� :mx#0:\
������� :sh:sf:\
������� :lf=/usr/adm/lpd-errs:\
������� :if=/usr/local/bin/myif:\
������� :of=/usr/local/atalk/etc/ofpap:
3.1.1 Name of the printer for Linux users
The first line defines three logical names for this printer which do not
need to have any similarity to the name you want to give this printer for
AppleShare clients. Thus, I included lp in this line, since lp is the
default for most UNIX users. The other names I only used to make sure I
remember which printer lp actually was.
3.1.2 Spool directory
Then you need to have a spool directory where the print spooler can store
the print jobs in the printer queue. I named my spool directory
/usr/spool/theobald on the same hierarchy level as the mail spool directory:
Pingo$ ls -l
drwxrwxr-x�� 2 root���� mail�������� 1024 Feb� 8 08:46 mail
drwxr-xr-x�� 2 root���� mail�������� 2048 Feb� 8 17:23 mqueue
drwxrwxr-x�� 5 news���� news�������� 1024 Sep� 1� 1994 news
drwxrwxr-x�� 2 root���� lp���������� 1024 Feb� 9 13:15 theobald
Create this directory using mkdir and then set ownership to root and group
lp, using
Pingo$ chown root.lp theobald
Then make sure you have the propper privileges using
Pingo$ chmod 775 theobald
Then I created the two files lock and status in this directory:
Pingo$ cd theobald
Pingo$ touch lock; chown root.root lock; chmod 004 lock
Pingo$ touch status; chown root.root status; chmod 664 status
Now you can define this directory as the spool directory as I did in line 2.
3.1.3 The printer device
If your printer is a local printer attached to a device like /dev/lp1, this
is the device you need. You will use mknod to make this device if it does
not already exist. For a printer in the AppleTalk zone, you actually don't
want to print to any device, but send your print job to this printer using
the pap program sitting in /usr/local/atalk/bin. This will be done by using
the psf filter which will invoke the pap program to access the printer.
Thus, after your job has been sent to the LaserWriter, it is still present
on your local Linux box, since the printer daemon lpd is supposed to send
your job to a device at the very end. Therefore we define /dev/null as the
printer device which will forward your job to outer space (you only want to
keep the copy which came out on the LaserWriter). So we put :lp=/dev/null:\
for that in the third line. Read the manual pages of psf, if you have more
than one AppleTalk printer and if there is a problem with using /dev/null as
the printer device.
3.1.4 Page size, maximum file size and header
Use the printcap entries pl and pw for page lenth (lines) and page width
(characters), respectively. With the printcap entry mx you can define the
maximum size of printfile which should be accepted. If your file is larger,
the printer daemon will truncate the file or refuse printing at all. If you
set the value to zero (mx#0), this means unlimited printing. Be aware that
in an accident your printer tray may be emptied until the last sheet if
nobody takes any action before this happens! And your starving printer will
request for more paper! So my advice is, to omit the mx#0 entry until your
testing is done and you are sure everything works ok. With the sh entry we
suppress output of a header page or header line (which would include the
information on the origin of your print job). With the sf option we suppress
output of form feeds.
3.1.5 Error logging
I defined the file /usr/adm/lpd-errs to be used to store error messages. You
will have to create this file yourself (just say touch /usr/adm/lpd-errs)!
3.1.6 The filters
Now, this is important. As already discribed, your print job will be sent to
the AppleTalk zone only if you install the appropriate filter which will
invoke pap. The netatalk distribution uses a hacker-style concept using the
filter psf, but with different links to it. psf then analyses the name of
that link to find out, that it has to start pap if this substring is in the
name of the link, and reverse the order of printing, if rev is in the name.
Look at this by typing
Pingo$ ls -l /usr/local/atalk/etc
lrwxrwxrwx�� 1 root���� root����������� 3 Feb� 8 14:44 ifpap -> psf
lrwxrwxrwx�� 1 root���� root����������� 3 Feb� 8 14:44 ifpaprev -> psf
lrwxrwxrwx�� 1 root���� root����������� 3 Feb� 8 14:44 ofpap -> psf
-rwxr-xr-x�� 1 root���� root������� 49299 Feb� 8 14:44 papd
-rw-r--r--�� 1 root���� root���������� 35 Feb� 9 13:48 papd.conf
-rwxr-xr-x�� 1 root���� root������� 11395 Feb� 8 14:44 psf
lrwxrwxrwx�� 1 root���� root����������� 3 Feb� 8 14:44 tfpap -> psf
lrwxrwxrwx�� 1 root���� root����������� 3 Feb� 8 14:44 tfpaprev -> psf
Pingo$
So a filter named ifpap will invoke pap, one named ifpaprev will reverse the
order of pages and invoke pap. It converts plain text to postscript, so that
you do not end up getting an error message. The only filter you really need
to install is the of filter:
������� :of=/usr/local/atalk/etc/ofpap:
All other filters are optional (see man psf). However, I left a filter name
for plain text,
������� :if=/usr/local/bin/myif:\
where /usr/local/bin/myif is a simple shell script which allows me to make
linebreaks in texts, which were written with a program that does line
wrapping automatically (e.g. textedit). The psf filter unfortunately does
not do any line breaking and ignors the setting for the paper width. I wrote
my own filter, linebreak.c which does the job, and put the following two
lines in myif (make it executable with chown 755 myif):
#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/linebreak $* | /usr/local/atalk/etc/ifpap $*
If you set up your text filter in this way, linebreak will only look at the
width of your printer (set with pw), while ifpap (psf) only looks at the
length. It seems that psf assumes 0 being the first line, so set pl#63 if
you want to have 64 lines per page in your output.
�If you don't need any line breaking, simply put
������� :if=/usr/local/atalk/etc/ifpap:\
into your printcap file.
Now save your new printcap. If you try to print now, you will find out that
it does not work, so read the following paragraph. As I mentioned before,
the Unix name of the printer in the printcap file has no relation to the
name the printer has in the AppleTalk zone. You need to create a file called
.paprc in your printer's spool directory which contains the AppleTalk
address of your printer! This is only one line. Note that in this file I did
not need to put the printer's name in quotes, but other people report that
it only worked with quotes on their system, and others report that it did
not work at all with quotes. Thus try it without quotes first:
Pingo$ cat /usr/spool/theobald/.paprc
Theobald Chapin, III:LaserWriter@VLSB
Pingo$
So, now you're ready to go.
If you get an error message like "Turing:LaserWriter@Tech Support": NBP then
try it without quotes. It might also be that you only have to put the name
before the colon in quotes, like "Theobald Chapin, III":LaserWriter@VLSB in
my case. Be creative and try all combinations if you have troubles. I don't
know the universial answer to this problem.
For some additional hacks and workarounds with filters see also section 4.3
(known problems).
3.2 Test the printer
First check whether your printer daemon (lpd) is really present:
Pingo$ ps -xa | grep lpd
�� 45� ?� SW��� 0:00 (lpd)
� 346 pp0 D���� 0:00 grep lpd
Pingo$
Try to print a PostScript file and a plain text file to make sure everything
works. Probably you have to restart the printer daemon using lpc with the
command restart lp, down lp and up lp. Then check the status
lpc> status
lp:
������� queuing is enabled
������� printing is enabled
������� no entries
������� no daemon present
lpc>�
lpc> quit
Now print your files using
Pingo$ lpr -P lp filename
If everything is all right, the status file in your spool directory should
now contain the most recent status information of your printer :
Pingo$ cat /usr/spool/theobald/status
job: Paul; status: busy; source: LocalTalk
Pingo$
3.3 Assign this printer a name for AppleShare clients
If you now go to a Mac and try to select your "new" printer you will find
out that it shows up with the hostname of your Linux box. This might not be
very satisfactory, therefore you need to create or edit the papd.conf file
in the etc directory of AppleTalk, /usr/local/atalk/etc/papd.conf (read man
papd for details). The minimum you would do is putting the name you want to
give your printer into this file, followed by :\ like in a printcap entry.
On the second line you specify the name this printer has under Linux with
the pr option. My entry looks like this:
Pingo$ cat /usr/local/atalk/etc/papd.conf
Pingo Mac LaserWriter:\
������� :pr=lp:
Pingo$
This means that the (default) printer variable lp is given the name Pingo
Mac LaserWriter for AppleShare clients. You will realize that a Mac user now
has access to printer Theobald Chapin, III directly and via my Linux box,
where the printer's name is Pingo Mac LaserWriter. For me it's important to
be able to print directly to this printer, and when working on the Mac the
printing via my Linux box seems much faster, since Linux will do the
spooling and the printjob disappears almost instantly from my Mac desktop.
�If you want to register your printer in a specific zone (not the default
zone), you just specify this zone with an @zonename extension in your
papd.conf file:
MotorsLab@EEAP:\
������� :pr=ee3rd:
3.4 What's the difference with a local printer attached to a Linux box?
The major difference between a local printer attached to a Linux box and an
Appletalk printer is that you just specify your printer in a standard way in
your /etc/printcap, with lp= set to the propper printer device (e.g.
/dev/lp1 for the first parallel port), and you don't need to install the
ifpap and ofpap printer which DIRECTLY print to an Appletalk printer. This
is an example of such a /etc/printcap file:
/etc/princap:
lp:lp=/dev/lp1:sd=/usr/spool/lp1:sh
And then in your papd.conf you can define this printer to be available to
Mac users:
/usr/local/atalk/etc/papd.conf:
HP LJIIIp:\
������� :pr=lp:\
������� :pd=/usr/local/atalk/etc/HP_LaserJet_IIIP.ppd:
Check out the detailed information given by Mike Pearson and Bill McGonigle
on using Ghostscript together with Netatalk if your local printer is not a
PostScript printer.
3.5 What's different for a non-local non-Appletalk Ethernet printer?
See also the man printcap manual page to solve this problem. The key is to
specify the remote-queue machine with the rm= option and specify the printer
name on the remote machine with the rp= option. As an example:
Your Linux box is named castor and you want to print to an ethernet printer
whose IP address is named POLLUX. If you do not know the internal name the
POLLUX printer knows for itself, it is very likely that it is called lp like
a standard printer. Then your /etc/printcap would look like this:
lp|Pollux printer:\
������� :sd=/usr/spool/pollux:\
������� :rm=pollux:\
������� :rp=lp:\
������� :pl#63:pw#85:\
������� :mx#0:\
������� :sh:sf:\
������� :lf=/usr/adm/lpd-errs:
�
4. Troubleshooting
4.1 General Strategy
If you have trouble printing to your printer, even though it worked fine
when you set up everything as I just described, look into your
/usr/adm/messages and /usr/adm/syslog files. As soon as you try to print
using the psf filter, you will find an entry in /usr/adm/messages. See an
example of how it looks when everything is fine:
Feb 12 17:47:52 Pingo ofpap[1443]: starting for ?
Feb 12 17:47:52 Pingo ofpap[1443]: sending to pap[1444]
Feb 12 17:47:52 Pingo ofpap[1443]: straight text
Feb 12 17:47:59 Pingo ofpap[1443]: 1444 done
Feb 12 17:47:59 Pingo ofpap[1443]: pausing
Feb 12 17:48:01 Pingo ifpap[1447]: starting for ?
Feb 12 17:48:01 Pingo ifpap[1447]: sending to pap[1448]
Feb 12 17:48:01 Pingo ifpap[1447]: straight text
Feb 12 17:48:09 Pingo ifpap[1447]: 1448 done
Feb 12 17:48:09 Pingo ofpap[1443]: restarting
Feb 12 17:48:09 Pingo ifpap[1447]: done
Feb 12 17:48:09 Pingo ofpap[1443]: done
Feb 12 18:00:46 Pingo ofpap[1481]: starting for ?
Feb 12 18:00:46 Pingo ofpap[1481]: sending to pap[1482]
Feb 12 18:00:46 Pingo ofpap[1481]: straight text
Feb 12 18:00:51 Pingo ofpap[1481]: 1482 done
Feb 12 18:00:51 Pingo ofpap[1481]: pausing
Feb 12 18:00:52 Pingo ifpap[1485]: starting for ?
Feb 12 18:00:52 Pingo ifpap[1485]: sending to pap[1486]
Feb 12 18:00:52 Pingo ifpap[1485]: straight text
Feb 12 18:00:57 Pingo ifpap[1485]: 1486 done
Feb 12 18:00:57 Pingo ofpap[1481]: restarting
Feb 12 18:00:57 Pingo ofpap[1481]: done
Feb 12 18:00:57 Pingo ifpap[1485]: done
If something is wrong, you get a message in /usr/adm/syslog like:
Feb 12 10:04:59 Pingo papd[70]: No such printer: "lp"
Feb 12 10:04:59 Pingo papd[70]: printcap problem: "lp"
(your default printer variable lp is not defined)
Feb 12 17:02:21 Pingo ofpap[1149]: 1150 died with 1
Feb 12 17:02:21 Pingo lpd[1148]: lp: output filter died (1)
Feb 12 17:02:26 Pingo lpd[1148]: lp: Daemon filter 'f' terminated (11)
Feb 12 17:04:48 Pingo lpd[1195]: lp: Daemon filter 'f' terminated (11)
Feb 12 17:08:03 Pingo lpd[1216]: lp: Daemon filter 'f' terminated (11)
Feb 12 17:10:00 Pingo lpd[1228]: cannot execv
/usr/local/bin/linebreak|/usr/local/atalk/ifpap
Feb 12 17:11:51 Pingo lpd[1244]: /usr/adm/lpd-errs: No such file or
directory
(/etc/printcap does not accept a pipeline in the definition of if; that's
the reason why I used a script file /usr/local/bin/myif. Also I had
forgotten to create the file /usr/adm/lpd-errs, which I defined in
/etc/printcap.)
4.2 Unknown Problems
First read through Section 4.3 with the known problems. If you do not get
any helpful information send me an e-mail and attach your /etc/printcap and
your /usr/local/atalk/etc/papd.conf files with it!
nbplkup shows the printer's name and address, but I do not get any response
with papstatus from that printer.
Is there a way to keep a printing quota for each Mac user printing via my
Linux box?
4.3 Known Problems
I get a lot of feedback from people who have trouble, so I'd like to make
some of the information available for everybody. This will be a growing list
of unsorted items. Just check out whether your problem is described below.
4.3.1 No output from plain textfile
Check your /usr/adm/lpd-errs file for an entry like
unprintable character (0x9a)!
This is a problem with psf, the filter used to print. Locate the file psf.c
in your netatalk distribution, make it writeable (chmod 644 psf.c). Locate
the second line where unprintable character is found. The first occurence
(out of 2) should be in line 402 and the second in 496 or so. The second is
probably the cause of your problem. Replace the part which reads
� if ( !isascii( *p ) || !isprint( *p )) {
����� if ( !literal ) {
��������� fprintf( stderr, "unprintable character (0x%x)!\n",
����������������� (unsigned char)*p );
��������� return( 2 );� /* Toss job */
����� }
����� printf( "\\%o", (unsigned)*p );
with
� if ( !isascii( *p ) || !isprint( *p )) {
����� if ( !literal ) {
��������� fprintf( stderr,
����������������� "unprintable character (0x%x) converted to ?!\n",
����������������� (unsigned char)*p );
��������� /* return( 2 );*/���� /* Toss job */
��������� putchar( '?' );������ /* Don't toss job!����� */
����� }
����� else{
������� printf( "\\%o", (unsigned)*p );
����� }
Now you type make at the prompt in the netatalk directory (not in the
directory where psf.c sits, because make will not know the path to pap in
this case!). Then copy the new psf to its propper location
(/usr/local/atalk/etc). What this does is only the following: it replaces
the unprintable character by an interrogation mark and goes on without
tossing the job. Maybe someone has the motivation to write a better psf
which converts "unprintable" characters to their printable PostScript
equivalent? But pay attention to the copyright of psf, if you do so!
4.3.2 No umlauts and national characters
As mentioned just above, the psf filters do not support extended character
sets. However, nenscript does. But since this is not a filter of the type
which could be directly used in the printcap setup, you will have to make a
workaround. My setup defines an additional printer which deals with plain
text, using nenscript. /etc/printcap looks like this:
#
# Apple LaserPrinter Select 360 on AppleTalk:
#
lp|Pingo LaserWriter|Theobald Chapin, III:\
������� :sd=/usr/spool/theobald:\
������� :lp=/dev/null:\
������� :pl#61:\
������� :pw#80:\
������� :mx#0:\
������� :sh:\
������� :sf:\
������� :lf=/var/adm/lpd-errs:\
������� :if=/usr/local/bin/myif:\
������� :of=/usr/local/atalk/etc/ofpap:
#
# Special setup for plain text files, to convert to PostScript using
nenscript
# instead of psf (which doesn't process the whole ISO characterset)
#
text:\
������� :sd=/usr/spool/textprinter:\
������� :lp=/dev/null:\
������� :mx#0:\
������� :sh:\
������� :sf:\
������� :lf=/var/adm/lpd-errs:\
������� :of=/usr/local/bin/textfilter:
The file /usr/local/bin/textfilter is a shell script containing the
following lines:
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/nenscript -P lp -2 -r -T US -i "Werner Eugster"
Unfortunately I didn't find a way to preserve the name of the file to be
printed, therefore I used the -i option with my name to label the output.
You may find more sophisticated setups, using the user name from the Unix
environment variable.
�In this setup, I get plain text printed on landscape paper (option -r) in
two columns (-2) sent to the standard printer lp. To print plain text, I use
the command
lpr -P text plain.txt
So, first of all, the printer defined as text converts plain text to
PostScript using nenscript (which processes the full ISO character set) and
hands it over to the printer defined as lp. Thus, using lpq will show you
that the print job turns up in the default (lp) printer queue saying it's
coming from stdin, which is ok.
�If anyone has some idea how to set things up such that the filename is
printed in the header line, I would appreciate this feedback!
4.3.3 My setting of page length and page width is ignored
That was my bug. Check the part where I described myif above. You have to
add $* twice in the second line in the file, which now reads
#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/linebreak $* | /usr/local/atalk/etc/ifpap $*
4.3.4 Print job is sent to printer but is never printed
There are many such problems. One which was reported to me by Paolo Supino
is the following:
�"At a quick inspection of the output of nbplkup (to see if there are
strange sniffers, viruses lurking around), I saw that the printers on the
network have the same node number as our NT SERVER (which spools the Windows
PCs). This was wrong.
1. NT SERVER is a very bad spooler.
2. It's supposed only to spool the Windows Machines.
3. Even though not instructed to capture all the incoming traffic to the
printers on the network it did.
Solution: Disabled totally the print server for Macintosh on the NT server.
Edited the .paprc file in the spool directory so it points directly to the
printer. Restarted the computer so it will have a fresh memory."
�
�
4.3.5 My printer doesn't take the paper from the tray I want
With the default setup, everything will be printed on paper from the
standard printer tray. If you want to setup your printer in such a way that
it takes paper from another tray than the default one, try the following:
Modify your /usr/local/bin/myif and pipe everything through awk or any other
filter program, that can write an additional line into the pipe after the
header line. E.g. I tried the following in my /usr/local/bin/myif:
#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/linebreak $* | awk '{if(NR==1&&$1~"%!"){print;print
"statusdict begin /manualfeed true store end\n";}else{print}}' |
/usr/local/atalk/etc/ifpap $*
(make sure there are no physical linebrakes in line number 2). What this
does is: it tells your printer to take the paper from the manual tray. For
other trays replace the text in the quotes ("statusdict begin /manualfeed
true store end\n") by the appropriate command from the following list.
Tray PostScript command
Front paper tray "statusdict begin 0 setpapertray end"
Rear paper tray "statusdict begin 1 setpapertray end"
Manual paper tray "statusdict begin /manualfeed true store end"The
PostScript commands to define the output trays are
Tray PostScript command
Upper output tray "0 statusdict /setoutputtray get exec"�
Lower output tray� "1 statusdict /setoutputtray get exec"�Of course, if you
want to define input AND output tray, you must have two lines inserted into
your postscript file.
However, this only works for input which is already PostScript. If you want
the same for text input which is first converted to PostScript, you need to
modify the psf.c file and produce a new psf filter (don't forget to really
install it in your /usr/local/atalk/etc directory!). What you have to do is
find the line where %%!PS-Adobe-2.0 is printed (approximately line 379, it
must be in function textps()). Add a new program line below this line which
says
printf( "statusdict begin /manualfeed true store end\n" );
(again, you may want to replace the text within the quotes with what is
appropriate for your system). Then recompile psf and install it.
Davis Goodman ended up with the following myif script which finds out
whether you want to print to letter size or legal size paper. If it's legal,
the PostScript command to select the rear tray is issued, otherwise the
default tray is used to take the paper from.
#!/bin/sh
bounding=`grep BoundingBox $8 | cut -d" " -f5 `
if [ "$bounding" = "" ]; then
� /usr/bin/awk '{if(NR==1&&$1~"%!"){print;print "statusdict begin 1
setpapertray end\n";}else{print}}' | /usr/local/atalk/etc/ifpap $*
else
� /usr/local/atalk/etc/ifpap $*
fi
This works with Netscape and your own software might produce different
values for the BoundingBox. I just included this example by Davis to give
you a hint where to start if you want to do similar hacks.
�An example comes from Tomas Pospisek who defined a printer name for each
tray of the same printer in /etc/printcap. Thus, in any application or in
the shell you specify the respective printer name to get stuff printed to
paper from a specific tray. Tomas' /etc/printcap looks like this:
# LaserWriter Pro 630 (Default Tray)
lp:\
������� :sd=/usr/spool/lp1:\
������� :lp=/dev/null:\
������� :pl#63:pw#85:\
������� :mx#0:\
������� :sh:sf:\
������� :lf=/var/log/lp-errs:\
������� :if=/usr/lib/atalk/filters/myif:\
������� :of=/usr/lib/atalk/filters/ofpap:
#
# LaserWriter Pro 630 (Manual Tray)
lpm:\
������� :sd=/usr/spool/lpm:\
������� :lp=/dev/null:\
������� :pl#63:pw#85:\
������� :mx#0:\
������� :sh:sf:\
������� :lf=/var/log/lp-errs:\
������� :if=/usr/lib/atalk/filters/myif_manual:\
������� :of=/usr/lib/atalk/filters/ofpap:
and the myif_manual filter looks like this:
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/awk '{if(NR==1&&$1~"%!"){print;print "statusdict begin
/manualfeed true store end\n";}else{print}}' |
/usr/lib/atalk/filters/ifpap $*
4.3.6 Sending binary Postscript data via pap does not work
Christof Warlich writes: In psf.c, I simply replaced textps by copyio, which
solved the problem perfectly for me, since I never need to print plain text.
In magic.c, I only commented out the two occurences of the line "*stop =
'\n';". That solved the problem for me, although the very first occurence of
a carriage return is still replaced by line feed if the file starts with
%!PS-Adobe-3.0.
4.3.7 Problems with the MacIntosh printer driver
This is a feedback from Antonio Vieiro Varela [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I've
been trying to print on some of our Linux boxes from our Macintosh
unsuccessfully for a long time.
�The problem was in our Macintosh's printer driver. A LaserWriter version
7-something. We upgraded it to version 8 (8.3.something) and everything
works now. We are printing.
�It was hard to detect, because we did all you said in your pages without
success, and we thought the problem was in the Linux side, not in the
Macintosh one.
�I am a Linux system administrator, and know _nothing_ about Mac's. I've
also learnt that there are available printer drivers in the www.apple.com
page (well, that's not surprising) and if you want to install them you need
a program called Installer. This program is withing the printer driver
disks, which you have to translate with a program called Disk copy.
�I didn't know about the disk-copy program. I just got the drivers and
fighted the Mac trying to install them. No way. With the Disk Copy program
everything was easiest.
4.3.8 Local printer prints from Linux, but not from Mac via papd
Edan Idzerda has a web page (http://www.mtusysadm.mtu.edu/mtudocs/netatalk/)
which actually solved the problem for me. Instead of setting pr: to the
printer name in papd.conf, he suggests piping it to lpr -Pprinter_name. As I
mentioned to him, it's not very elegant, but since it works, why knock it?
�
4.3.9 My Mac LaserWriter is not hooked up directly to the Ethernet but to a
local Mac box
This requires additional software to be installed on the Mac: "LaserWriter
Bridge" (as I was told by Tony Sneyd). Ask your Mac gurus where to get this
puppy, I do not have it.
�
4.3.10 Problems printing from Macs with OS 8.1
Richard writes that printing locally from Linux worked, but when printing
from a Mac with OS 8.1 unknown spooler errors were produced. His solution:
use piping to lpr instead of directly specifying a printer, and use a
LaserWriter driver with version number 8.4.1 instead of 8.5.1. Version 8.4.1
is the one from OS8 and can be gotten from the Apple Tech Support Site.
�
4.3.11 Problems with MkLinux on a Mac Power PC
Heinz Nabielek got things finally working with the
netatalk-1.4b2+asun2.0a18.2-oa1a Netatalk distribution instead of the
netatalk-1.4b2+asun2.1.1-2 distribution. He had to insert the appletalk
module with the insmod /lib/modules/2.2.1/misc/appletalk.o command and then
to start the Appletalk daemon with atalkd. The tricky thing seems to be that
the newer release of Netatalk is a step backwards from the 2.0a18.2-oa1
release.
========================================================================
Up to now (25.03.1999) I got constructive feedback and questions from people
in
COM domain������������� 47
EDU (USA)�������������� 39
US domain (USA)��������� 5
GOV domain USA���������� 6
NET domain�������������� 9
ORG domain�������������� 3
Australia��������������� 3
Austria����������������� 9
Belgium����������������� 1
Canada������������������ 3
France������������������ 5
Germany���������������� 15
Hongkong���������������� 1
Iceland����������������� 1
Italy������������������� 7
Japan������������������� 2
Namibia����������������� 1
Netherlands������������� 2
Panama (.pa)������������ 1
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========================================================================
� 6 April 1999 by Werner Eugster ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
------------------------------
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