Why multiple spool files?

Steve Snyder ssnyder at indy.net
Wed Mar 18 14:06:53 GMT 1998


Using Samba v1.9.18p3 on a Linux system, I find that that any print jobs 
sent to a shared printer results in doubled files.  It's not that 2 copies 
of the print job are actually *printed*, it's just a matter of dual 
spool files being created.

For example, the content of the /var/spool/lpd/lj4m directory:

-rw-rw----   1 bin      lp            127 Mar 15 17:48 cfA315Aa10463  
-rw-rw----   1 root     root            0 Mar 15 17:48 cfA315Aa10464  
-rw-rw----   1 steve    lp        1417816 Mar 15 17:48 dfA315Aa10463  
-rw-rw-r--   1 root     root      1417816 Mar 15 17:48 dfA315Aa10464  
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root         9289 Dec 16 10:31 filter         
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root          191 Dec 16 10:31 general.cfg    
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root           20 Mar 15 17:48 lock           
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root          342 Dec 16 10:31 postscript.cfg 
-rw-rw-r--   1 root     root           29 Mar 15 17:48 status         
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root          146 Dec 16 10:31 textonly.cfg   

The 1.4MB print job above was created by me (user "steve"). So why is 
there a duplicate file owned by root?

My Samba printer type is undefined (so it's BSD by default), and my 
[Printers] section of smb.conf looks like this:

[printers]                      
    comment = All Printers  
    browseable = No         
    path = /var/spool/samba 
    create mask = 0700      
    guest ok = Yes          
    print ok = Yes          

For small, text-only print jobs, I don't much care that duplicate spool 
files are created.  The problem is that we routinely print large (10+ 
megabyte) files, causing a lot of unnessessary server activity and disk 
space usage.

Anyone have a clue what's going on here?  Thanks.


***** Steve Snyder *****



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