Network Printers on SCO ENTERPRISE 5.xx 1

[joemama613]

I have a few network printers connected that many people print to. Every once in a while (more often than I would like), a network printer will no longer print. When I go to the Print Job Manager in SCOADMIN, I will see multiple jobs backed up to the printer in question. When I delete all waiting jobs, the printer is fine until the next time this happens. The exact problem happens with at least two printers. Can you help?

 

[PHV]

Which printing method (hpnp or lpr/lpd) ?

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[joemama613]

lpr/lpd

 

[PHV]

You may try to stop/restart the lpd service:
kill -15 `ps -e | awk '$NF=="lpd"{print $1}'`
rm -f /usr/spool/lpd/lock /usr/spool/lpd/*/lock
sleep 5
/usr/lib/lpd &

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[stanhubble]

make sure the :ex option is not in the /etc/printcap entry for these printers if the remote print server is not an sco box.
i remove it even if it is.

 

[joemama613]

Stanhubble...No :ex option at any of the printers in printcap. Any other suggestions? Joe

 

[PHV]

And what is the output of the rlpstat command when the printer no longer print ?

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[motoslide]

Your symptom is (unfortunately) quite common on lpd printers in SCO OpenServer. If the printer is busy or unresponsive for a period of time, the lpd child process appears to just hang and wait forever.
I don't know how to prevent that behavior, but you could use PHV's script within another "watchdog" script to restart those printers without manual intervention.
We have a couple of Clients doing so with a script that will fire off if a particular printjob hasn't been handled in 15 minutes. Of course, that time-frame is highly subjective. In our case, the reports are seldom longer than a 2-page packing slip.

 

[zalmanp]

I would like to set up a shell script that can be invoked by any user to reset the spooler. However, they do not have permissions for that. So I thought of including an "su" as part of the shell to give them access but I do not want to give them the root password. Is there a way to create a new user that will have permission to reset the spooler? This way I can have the shell "su" to this new user that will not have the root password. Following is part of the shell:
su root "-c ls -9 -u"
kill -15 `ps -e|awk '$NF=="lpd"{print$1}'`
rm -f /usr/spool/lpd/lock /usr/spool/lpd/*/lock
sleep 5
/usr/lib/lpd&
Or perhaps there is an existing user (lp for example) that I can put in the shell. I was hesitant to set up a password for lp - I'm not sure what affect it will have on the system.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[PHV]

Unfortunately, only root has sufficient privileges to remove files in /var/spool/lpd subdirectories.

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[KenCunningham]

Would asroot work for this? Or sudo?

 

[motoslide]

Both "asroot" and "sudo" would be better solutions (or a cron-based watchdog as noted earlier). But, a fairly simple solution would be to create a "root" equivilent login that runs your script and exits. This is NOT a sound security policy, but works for most of our customers.

All you need to do is create a new standard login account (i.e. lpreset), then edit the /etc/passwd entry to make the UID "0". Edit the corresponding entry in /tcb/files/auth/l/lpreset. Then, edit the /usr/lpreset/.profile script to include this:
exec /usr/local/bin/{your script}.

 

[zalmanp]

Thanks motoslide. That was very helpful. I wasn't sure hoe to edit the /tcb/files/auth/l/lpreset but I copied everything from root (except the password) and it's working fine now.
Thanks for all your help!