SUMMARY: more HP Jet Direct woes

From: Randy Olsson (rao@hobbes.crc.com)
Date: Thu Aug 04 1994 - 10:46:00 CDT


Both problems are solved. Here is the original mail:

> In short:
> I am having 2 problems printing to an HP4M on the network:
> 1) only root can print
> 2) I can't get rid of the banner page
>
> Details:
> HW - Sparc 5, HP4M, HP Jet Direct ethernet card
> SW - Solaris 2.3 ed II, hpnp vB.01.03 downloaded from net
>
> <only root can print>
> I had this problem once before on a Sparc 10/52 with Solaris 2.3. To
> fix it, I simply changed the permissions on the net_lj4x.sol script. The
> permissions in this case are fine. When a user prints, the on-line light
> on the printer will blink once. Nothing will print and no errors will be
> generated. (Postscript errors are turned on)
> <always get banner>
> I tried to fix this with the command "lpadmin -p discovery -o nobanner".
> This seemed to change 1 line in the /etc/lp/printers/discovery/configuration
> file from "Banner: on:Always" to "Banner: on". When that didn't help,
> I changed the line to "Banner: off". That didn't help either.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kudos to Tim Wort for an early solution to the banner problem.
Tim writes:
> This file explains how to prevent the banner from printing under
> Solaris 2.x using HP Jetdirect Network software.
>
> 1) Change to ROOT user.
>
> 2) cd /etc/lp/interfaces
>
> Backup the model file. You will find a file in this directory with the
> same filename as the name you assigned to the printer when you installed
> the JetDirect software.
>
> 3) cp <filename> <filename.bak>
>
> 4)vi <filename>
>
> Search for a string by typing:
>
> /options=$5
>
> This should take you to the following entry in the file.
>
> title=$3
> copy=$4
> options=$5
> shift 5
>
> 5) change the options=$5 to options="$5 nb" (the quotes (") ARE required)
>
> 6) Save the file and exit vi.
>
> NOTE: If for any reason the printer nolonger prints then restore
> the original file. Test the printer and try again. If all has gone
> well print job will nolonger print a banner. You should still be
> able to pass other -o options to the printer.
>
In my case, there was an /etc/lp/interfaces/discovery file - but it did not
have the above mentioned info. There was, however, an
/etc/lp/interfaces/model.orig/discovery file that did look like the correct
one. I changed it and the banner went away.

Note: The /etc/lp/printers/discovery/configuration file has a line that says:
Interface: /usr/lib/lp/model/net_lj4x.sol. This file is the same file as
the /etc/lp/interfaces/model.orig/discovery file except the line I changed.
It appears that the /etc/lp/printers/discovery/configuration file is not
consulted.(?) I thought I had both solved because the model.orig dir was
750. However, changing it to 755 did not solve the problem.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everett Schell was advised by HP to define two printers: one with and one
without the banner. Some of the hpnpcfg utils I have used include a list
of options that can be set. This particular one did not. I could only
select which script to use, the printer name, and the device name.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Bosko wins the award for the first to fix the root only problem.
He writes:
> Check the permissions on the /var/spool/lp/log that hpnp creates.
> (Or where ever your log file is.) I had the same problem.
> Users where not able to write to the log file and couldn't print as
> a result.
My log file was 640. I also searched through /etc/lp/*, /var/lp/*, and
/var/spool/lp* to check and fix permission problems.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Zegarac writes:

        I don't know about your HP4M, but our QMS postscript printer has an
internal setting that causes header pages to print no matter what the print
queue is set to. Have you checked for anything like that?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Anderson writes:
> My understanding is that you cannot turn the banner off. You can only
> set it to
> a) force a banner to always be printed, or
> b) allow users to turn it off with the -o nobanner option.
> I worked around this by writing a wrapper, in which I give the lp
> command with the -o nobanner option. You could probably make this
> totally transparent by putting /usr/local/bin before /usr/bin the
> users' paths, and calling the script `lp'. This way, they can use the
> same command name, but your script will run instead.
>
> #!/bin/sh
> # File: /usr/local/bin/printcolor
> # This script simply sends a file to the color printer
> # and turns off the banner to avoid wasting paper.
> if [ ! "$1" ]; then
> prog=`basename $0`
> echo USAGE: $prog filename
> exit 1
> fi
> /usr/bin/lp -d color -o nobanner $1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If your looking for the software, Randy Finch writes:
> Thanks for your help. The hpnp software from HP is now
> called jetadmin (part no. J2375B, list price $199.00)
>
> I finally reached someone at HP's Customer Support
> Center (208/323-2551 -- option 4 -- ask for jetdirect
> support) that actually gave me some useful information.
>
> Software for connecting a system running SunOS 4.1.3
> (may work with other releases) with a LaserJet 4si
> via the jetdirect card:
>
> anonymous ftp 192.6.71.2
> -- SunOS 4.1.3 directory --
> /pub/printers/laserjet/sunos
> files: README.1ST.SUN
> new.software.txt
> hpnpC02.readme
> hpnpC02.sun.tar
>
> I also noticed in the /pub/printers/laserjet
> solaris22_23
> solaris21
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timo Lehto writes:
> Two thing to check :
> 1 . /dev/null ( /devices/pseudo/mm@:null ) rights, it should be owned
> by root and everyone should have rw rights ( gets own by lp and only
> root and lp can write ). Generates problems with other programs.
I have seen this before.
  
> 2 . This was the real reason in our system : file /usr/spool/lp/log
> was owned by root who only had right to write it. Gave rw rights
> to everyone and voila it works !

Many Thanks to:
From: tim@melblanc.access.com (Tim Wort)
From: "Everett Schell" <schell@molbio.cbs.umn.edu>
From: Mike Bosko <mdb@falcons.pp.msu.edu>
From: zegarac@gdls.com (Dan Zegarac)
From: anderson@neon.mitre.org (Mark S. Anderson)
From: randy@goofy0.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com (Randy Finch)
From: Timo Lehto <timoal@martis.fi>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:09:07 CDT