Printing to Lantronix Print/Terminal Servers at AIX V4.x

Contents

About this document
Product overview
Two ways to print
Printing to the Lantronix server as a remote printer
Adding a remote queue for a Lantronix printer
Printing with RTEL Reverse TELnet
Using the named pipe

About this document

This document describes how to print to printers attached to a Lantronix terminal server. Two methods are described. The first method uses the standard AIX remote queue while the second method uses a reverse telnet program.

This document applies to AIX Versions 4.x.


Product overview


Two ways to print

  1. Print from AIX to server as remote printer.

      LPR is recommended (by Lantronix) as the method of printing. It is easy to set up and requires no additional host software.

  2. Print from AIX using RTEL backend.

    • RTEL backend filter

        The RTEL backend filter is a program that interfaces with the host-based spooling system. It receives data from the spooling system and sends the data to the ETS. The advantages of the backend filter are that the banner page is printed at the front of a job, multiple copies can be printed, and simple reformatting such as to conversion and tab expansion can be performed. However, the backend filter does not support any complicated output filtering or conversions.

    • RTEL named pipe interface

        The RTEL Pipe Daemon (RTELPD) process uses a UNIX named pipe as its interface to the host. This allows any host- or user-supplied backend filter to be used for printing. Any data that is sent into the pipe is simply moved to the ETS. However, the data flows one way from the host system to the ETS, and this approach does require one RTELPD daemon process for each print queue configured.


Printing to the Lantronix server as a remote printer

Notes about LPR


Adding a remote queue for a Lantronix printer

AIX Version 4 supports local formatting of remote print jobs using a backend similar to, but with more robustness than, the one supplied above. The steps to add the remote queue are as follows:

  1. Enter smit mkpq.
  2. Select remote ------- Printer Attached to Remote Host.
  3. Select Local filtering before sending to print server.
  4. Select Printer Manufacturer.
  5. Select Printer Type.
  6. Fill in the Add a Remote Print Queue with Local Filtering menu.

    • At Queue Names, enter the names to be used on the AIX system
    • At HOSTNAME of Remote Server, enter the server host name
    • At Name of QUEUE on remote server, enter the queue on Lantronix Server ETS_xxxxxx_S1
    • At Type of print spooler on remote server, enter BSD. Be sure to change this from AIX.
    • Set the Send PASS-THROUGH FLAG to queue to yes.
    • Set the Backend TIME OUT period (minutes) to 5.

  7. Press Enter to create queues.


Printing with RTEL Reverse TELnet

The rtel filter is supplied by Lantronix. To obtain the filter, contact Lantronix or download it from http://www.lantronix.com/products/software/rtel.

Because it is a filter, it takes data from standard in (stdin), and outputs the data to standard out (stdout). This means that it should work well as the output filter for a virtual printer. The output filter is designated by the mo attribute of a virtual printer. The following describes how this should work, although some details might be missing. As a result, this procedure is unsupported and supplied on a best effort basis.

Creating a virtual printer using RTEL

Follow these steps:

  1. Enter touch /dev/rtel1 to create a lock file. Use a separate lock file for each server.
  2. Enter smit mkpq.
  3. Select file           File     (in the /dev directory)
  4. Select Printer Manufacturer.
  5. Select Printer Type.
  6. At Name of existing FILE in /dev directory enter rtel1.
  7. Enter the queue name, for example, lanprt.
  8. Change the mo attribute. Enter:
       chvirprt -q lanprt -d rtel1 -a "mo=/usr/local/bin/rtel -s lanh -p 2"
    
    The flags -s for server and -p for port should be verified with the manpages of the RTEL program. mo must have the full pathname of RTEL and the options that point at the server and port.
  9. This assumes you can print to the server directly with the command rtel -s xx -p ##.

Using the named pipe

If the LPR method of printing is not adequate for some applications, use the Lantronix RTEL as discussed above. One of the options with this software is to set it up as a named pipe. The details for doing this are supplied in the README file that comes with the RTEL software and is supported by Lantronix.

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[ Doc Ref: 92031885713466     Publish Date: Feb. 05, 2001]