lpsystem(1M) UNIX System V(Line Printer Spooling Utilities) lpsystem(1M)
NAME
lpsystem - register remote systems with the print service
SYNOPSIS
lpsystem [-t type] [-T timeout] [-R retry] [-y "comment"] system-name
[system-name ...]
lpsystem -l [system-name ...]
lpsystem -r system-name [system-name ...]
lpsystem -A
DESCRIPTION
The lpsystem command is used to define parameters for the LP print
service, with respect to communication (via a high-speed network such as
STARLAN or TCP/IP) with remote systems. Only a privileged user (that is,
the owner of the login root) may execute the lpsystem command.
Specifically, the lpsystem command is used to define remote systems with
which the local LP print service can exchange print requests. These
remote systems are described to the local LP print service in terms of
several parameters that control communication: type, retry and timeout.
These parameters are defined in /etc/lp/Systems. You can edit this file
with a text editor (such as vi) but editing is not recommended.
The type parameter defines the remote system as one of two types: s5
(System V Release 4) or bsd (SunOS). The default type is s5.
The timeout parameter specifies the length of time (in minutes) that the
print service should allow a network connection to be idle. If the
connection to the remote system is idle (that is, there is no network
traffic) for N minutes, then drop the connection. (When there is more
work the connection will be restablished.) Legal values are n, 0, and N,
where N is an integer greater than 0. The value n means ``never time
out''; 0 means ``as soon as the connection is idle, drop it.'' The
default is n.
The retry parameter specifies the length of time to wait before trying to
re-establish a connection to the remote system, when the connection was
dropped abnormally (that is, a network error). Legal values are n, 0,
and N, where N is an integer greater than 0 and it means ``wait N minutes
before trying to reconnect. (The default is 10 minutes.) The value n
means ``do not retry dropped connections until there is more work''; 0
means ``try to reconnect immediately.''
The comment argument allows you to associate a free form comment with the
system entry. This is visible when lpsystem -l is used.
System-name is the name of the remote system from which you want to be
able to receive jobs, and to which you want to be able to send jobs.
The command lpsystem -l [system-name] will print out a description of the
parameters associated with system-name (if a system has been specified),
or with all the systems in its database (if system-name has not been
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specified).
The command lpsystem -r system-name will remove the entry associated with
system-name. The print service will no longer accept jobs from that
system or send jobs to it, even if the remote printer is still defined on
the local system.
The command lpsystem -A will print out the TCP/IP address of the local
machine in a format to be used when configuring the local port monitor to
accept requests from a SunOS system.
NOTES:
With respect to /etc/lp/Systems, this information is relatively minimal
with repect to controlling network communications. Network addresses and
services are handled by the Netconfig and Netdir facilities (see the
``Network Services'' chapter in the System Administrator's Guide for a
discussion of network addresses and services.) Port monitors handle
listening for remote service requests and routing the connection to the
print service (see the ``Service Access'' chapter in the System
Administrator's Guide for a discusion of port monitors.)
If the Netconfig and Netdir facilities are not set up properly, out-
bound remote print service probably will not work. Similarly, if the
local port monitors are not set up to route remote print requests to the
print service, then service for remote systems will not be provided.
(See ``Allowing Remote Systems to Access Local Printers" and "Configuring
a Local Port Monitor" in the ``Print Service" chapter of the System
Administrator's Guide to find out how to do this.)
With respect to the semantics of the timeout and retry values, the print
service uses one process for each remote system with which it
communicates, and it communicates with a remote system only when there is
work to be done on that system or work being sent from that system.
The system initiating the connection is the ``master'' process and the
system accepting the connection is the ``slave'' process. This
designation serves only to determine which process dies (the slave) when
a connection is dropped. This helps prevent there from being more than
one process communicating with a remote system. Furthermore, all
connections are bi-directional, regardless of the master/slave
designation. You cannot control a system's master/slave designation.
Now, keeping all this information in mind, if a master process times out,
then both the slave and master will exit. If a slave times out, then it
is possible that the master may still live and retry the connection after
the retry interval. Therefore, one system's resource management strategy
can effect another system's strategy.
With respect to lpsystem -A: a SunOS system (described with -t bsd) can
be connected to your system only via TCP/IP, and print requests from a
SunOS system can come in to your machine only via a special port (515).
The address given to you from lpsystem will be the address of your system
and port 515. This address is used by your TCP/IP port monitor (see
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lpsystem(1M) UNIX System V(Line Printer Spooling Utilities) lpsystem(1M)
sacadm(1M) and nlsadmin(1M)) to ``listen'' on that address and port, and
to route connections to the print service. (This procedure is discussed
in the ``Service Access'' chapter of the System Administrator's Guide.)
The important point here is that this is where you get the address
refered to in that procedure.
The command lpsystem -A will not work if your system name and IP address
are not listed in /etc/inet/hosts and the printer service is not listed
in /etc/inet/services.
FILES
/var/spool/lp/* /etc/lp/*
SEE ALSO
netconfig(4)
Network Programmer's Guide
System Administrator's Guide
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