lpsystem(1M) lpsystem(1M)
NAME
lpsystem - register remote systems with the print service
SYNOPSIS
lpsystem [-t type] [-T timeout] [-R retry] [-y "comment"] systemname
[systemname ...]
lpsystem -l [systemname ...]
lpsystem -r systemname [systemname ...]
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 com-
mand.
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
or bsd. 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 re-established.) 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.
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lpsystem(1M) lpsystem(1M)
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 [systemname] will print out a description of
the parameters associated with systemname (if a system has been
specified), or with all the systems in its database (if systemname
has not been specified).
The command lpsystem -r systemname will remove the entry associated
with systemname. 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 BSD system.
NOTES
With respect to /etc/lp/Systems, this information is relatively
minimal with respect to controlling network communications. Network
addresses and services are handled by the Netconfig and Netdir facili-
ties. Port monitors handle listening for remote service requests and
routing the connection to the print service.
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 pro-
vided.
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 designa-
tion 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 con-
nections are bi-directional, regardless of the master/slave designa-
tion. 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.
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lpsystem(1M) lpsystem(1M)
With respect to lpsystem -A: a BSD system (described with -t bsd) can
be connected to your system only via TCP/IP, and print requests from a
BSD 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 sacadm(1M) and nlsadmin(1M)] to "listen" on that address and
port, and to route connections to the print service. The important
point here is that this is where you get the address referred 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).
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