Remote printing to Linux CUPS queue

UNIX AIX
1

Hello all.

I am setting up a queue under AIX 4.2.1 to print to a remote Linux CUPS queue. At present I can print to the queue remotely from Windows but not AIX. What I am seeing is lpstat reads the state of the remote queue but at job submission time I am getting backend exit fatal errors. The AIX queue is defined as such:

pdf:
        device = @server1
        up = TRUE
        host = server1
        s_statfilter = /usr/lib/lpd/bsdshort
        l_statfilter = /usr/lib/lpd/bsdlong
        rq = CUPS-PDF
@server1:
        backend = /usr/lib/lpd/rembak

I CAN telnet to port 631 or 515 from the AIX host.
I think there may be a problem with the data stream or some odd permission issue, if it were permissions though, I would expect the windows host to fail as well.

Results from lpstat:

pdf     @server1 READY    
pdf: CUPS-PDF is ready
pdf     CUPS- READY

CUPS-PDF is the name of the remote queue.

Thanks for reading.

2

please post the errors.

On another note - AIX 4.2.1 -- your really using an operating system version that is 14 years old??? That could be part of the problem also. You could try and build/install cups and use that instead of the AIX print subsytem.

3

There is no error generated that I can find. When I submit a print job the queue simply goes down. It seems like I had this working at one time but my notes are a bit sketchy. As for using a 14 year old OS....yes we really do and yes it is a production system. Not my choosing but the pay is the same. :slight_smile:

4

Regarding the OS version: i suppose you can't upgrade that much because your hardware might not be supported after 5.1 (if you have a really old R/6000 system, that is). Still you might consider upgrading to 4.3.3 ML11(12? 10? can't remember which was the last one), which was a lot more reliable than 4.2.1 and most likely your software will run with that too.

Regarding your printer problem: have you had a look at "/var/spool/qdaemon" and the files there? This is where the printing subsystem stores its files.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

5

Thanks for the tip. What I found was no file being created in qdaemon so I tried creating the queue with another name. Lo and behold it works fine now. I have seen this on three different occasions now where if I remove a queue (say during testing) and then try to add it back in with the same name, it gets its wires crossed up and doesn't work. I can recreate the issue at will. Just create a queue, delete it and re-add it. Sometimes when you do this, lets say you have a custom colon file associated with that queue. Any changes to the virtual printer are not applied. Create a queue with a different name, works fine. I hate things like that. :wall: