Printing to Lantronix Print/Terminal Servers at AIX V3.2.5

Contents

• ETS4P Terminal Server is a flexible, terminal server with four serial and four parallel ports.

• The Lantronix CoBox Serial Server provides exceptional functionality for users with TCP/IP applications requiring up to two serial ports.

• Ethernet Terminal Servers (ETS8 and ETS16) connect computing equipment to an Ethernet network. This includes personal computers, terminals, modems, printers, and even other devices that were not built to be networked. The ETS supports simultaneous serial connections to each of its ports and a single Ethernet connection. It is configurable and can offer its attached devices as services to the network as well as provide connections to other nodes on the network.

• Ethernet Printer Servers (EPS1, EPS2, EPS4, EPS12, LPS, and MPS) are multi-protocol print servers that provide shared network access to printers for a variety of network protocols and operating systems. They are different from the ETS units in that they cannot be used to initiate connections to hosts. They can only accept connections from hosts. They are intended solely for outputting data to locally attached devices.

• The Line Micro Printer Server (LPS, LPS1-T, LPS1-2) family includes the LPS1-T, a 10BASE-T micro print server, and the LPS1-2, a 10BASE2 version. These products offer an affordable solution for networks running any of the most popular networking protocols.

  The LPS1 products attach directly to a printer's parallel port and support TCP/IP, IPX, NetBIOS/NetBEUI and LAT protocols. With its market-leading low price, the LPS1 family offers a comprehensive set of features including multiprotocol support at a price that competes with single protocol print servers.

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.

Notes about LPR

Complete the following steps to add a remote queue with SMIT:

1. At the host prompt, enter smit spooler.
2. Choose Manage Remote Printer Subsystem.
3. Choose Client Services.
4. Choose Remote Printer Queues.
5. Choose Add a Remote Queue.
6. Fill in the following fields:

                               Add a Remote Queue
   
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   |AIX Prompt                       |Description           | Example          |
   |                                 |                      |                  |
   |NAME of Queue to Add             |Enter name to print to|                  |
   |                                 |  from AIX            |                  |
   |                                 |                      |                  |
   |DESTINATION HOST for remote jobs |Hostname of Lantronix | ets_host         |
   |                                 |  Server              |                  |            
   |                                 |                      |                  |             
   |Pathname of the SHORT FORM FILTER|                      |                  |
   |  for queue...                   |Script for status     | /usr/lpd/bsdshort|
   |                                 |                      |                  |
   |Pathname of the LONG FORM FILTER |                      |                  | 
   |  for queue...                   |Script for status     | /usr/lpd/bsdlong |
   |                                 |                      |                  | 
   |Name of QUEUE on remote printer  |Enter queue on server | ETS_xxxxxx_S1    | 
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   

7. Press Enter or DO to add the queue.

The rtel filter is supplied by Lantronix. 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.

Virtual printer using RTEL

1. Enter touch /dev/rtel1 to create a lock file. Use a separate lock file for each server.
2. Enter mkvirprt.
3. Select Printer or Plotter attached to local host.
4. Enter rtel1 at the prompt for device name.
5. Select the printer type.
6. Enter the queue name.
7. 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.
8. This assumes you can print to the server directly with the command rtel -s xx -p ##.

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.