*BSD News Article 95088


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From: stephen farrell <stephen+usenet@farrell.org>
Subject: Re: Printing to JetDirect on network
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To: "Chris Taylor" <cstaylor@dawtech.com>
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Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 01:33:55 GMT
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"Chris Taylor" <cstaylor@dawtech.com> writes:

> Anyone have any info about printing to a JetDirect network printer?  

It's not hard.  First you need to rarp it.  You can get the ethernet
address (x:x:x:x:x:x, x is hex number) from one of the diagnostics on
the printer.  Add this to /etc/ethers.  Use the ethernet address, and
then the host name.  Put the hostname and ip number in /etc/hosts.
Run rarpd.  Now when you turn the printer on, It should acquire that
IP number & thus hostname.  You can ping it to check.  (If it fails,
run rarpd in debug mode rarpd -d --also check the pertinant manpages,
and run tcpdump to see what's going on).

Now you can just treat it like another computer with a printer.  For
example, I have the following in /etc/printcap:

lp|HP LaserJet|LaserJet4P:\
  :sd=/var/spool/lpd:\
  :rm=itshostname.somedomain.com:\
  :lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:\
  :st=/var/log/lpd-status:\
  :mx#0:


Mine has postscript--if yours doens't have postscript then you have
another hurdle to climb, and one I can't help you with... check out
ghostscript documentation for this.

Another completely different alternative is to get netatalk -- an
appletalk stack, and use that to print to it as an appletalk printer.
I guess this would be easier (a) if you already had it (b) b/c it
might make talking to a non-postscript printer easier.

--steve farrell