Favorite print command for SAMBA on Sol 2.5.1

Dave dburwell at telecom.com
Mon Jun 8 19:23:37 GMT 1998


  I am having problems with the HP printers that are being handled by a
Solaris 2.5.1 machine. The boring details are towards the end. 
  The SAMBA print command I currently use is:
print command = echo %u - %s to %p at %T >> /tmp/smb-print.log ; \
                lpr -P %p %s ; \
                rm %s
;
  These are EXACTLY the way they are in the smb.conf file. The server will
print 99.9% of the jobs, it is only a very small percentage that have
problems.
  I have tried a "print command = lp -d %p %s"  but all of the jobs went
into the bit bucket and nothing ever got printed and nothing showed up in
the queues.
  What is the "correct", or most popular, method?
  If you want to help, please read the boring details included.
  Also - Please respond directly via email, not this list.

The REAL Problem:
  A queue will choke on a print job submitted by a client. The job will sit
at the top of the queue, and all other jobs will queue up behind it. Power
cycling the printer has no effect. I have to do a lprm -P<printer>, on the
server, to clear that job off the top of the queue, and then the remaining
jobs will print without problems.
  OR - A one page document, will print an infinite number of copies. (NOT
PS code, but real copies of that one page document, like the user selected
10000 as the number to print).
  I have 10 of these printers, and the problem has occurred on all of them,
but it never seems to effect more than one at a time. Once, on a really bad
day, it hit three about an hour apart. Obviously, I see these problems more
on the printers that are used the most.
   The clients are using the HP 5si MX PS driver. The problem occurs with
different users, different versions of the HP 5si MX PS driver on different
Win95 clients using different versions of Win95, Win311, & NT, printing to
different HP5siMX printers (we have 10 of them).
  The common element is the Solaris Print server.

Version Details:
  The server machine has the Recommended Patches for 2.5.1 from April. It
is Samba version 1.9.18p4 compiled on this machine - for this machine. The
HP JetAdmin program is Rev. D.04.12. All printers are TCP/IP through the
JetDirect cards, rev A.05.05.

  As a added MacGuffen: I have a UNIX admin in the UK that is having a
similar problem (queues lock up and infinite pages printed) - Except his
clients are all Solaris 2.X and they use the printools GUI to send jobs to
his printer server. His printer server is a Sol2.5.1 (like mine), with HP
Jetdirect D.04.12 (like mine), and JetDirect Cards use the same fimeware
version (like mine). 
  Sun Support is looking into his problem, but they are stumped.

dburwell at telecom.com
Dave


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