Samba and LPRng

[Dave Carrigan]

Hi all

I've recently been working on getting even better integration with
Samba and LPRng. Specifically, I'm looking at the following two
items:

1. Instead of reading a printcap file to auto-populate the printer
   list, have Samba parse the output of `lpc printcap all'. This would 
   have the following benefits:

   - Being able to go to the "horse's mouth" so to speak, to get the
     list of printers. Because LPRng allows for multiple printcaps and
     lots of other fun printcap twiddling (like the all:all= hack),
     it's hard to determine exactly what printers are actually in the
     list just by scanning a single printcap file. By doing `lpc
     printcap all', Samba is guaranteed to get the definitive list.

   - `lpc printcap all' normalizes its output by putting each printcap
     keyword on its own line and starting each new printer entry with
     a `Printer:' line. This makes the printcap parsing code much
     simpler and less error prone.

2. I'd like to add support for storing the printer driver info (for
   point and print) in the LPRng printcap. This is a four-line patch
   to LPRng, and it would allow samba to support point and print even
   for auto-loaded printers. The printcap entry would look like:

     printer|lp
        :cm=HP LaserJet 8100 Postscript/PCL, room 1801
        :lp=printer%9100:sd=/var/spool/lpd/printer
        :if=/usr/local/lib/filters/ifhp
        :lf=/var/spool/lpd/printer/log
        :sh:mx#0
        :samba_printer_driver=HP LaserJet 8100 Series PS

I've already written a proof of concept of these ideas, and they seem
to work OK in our test environment. Is the Samba Team interested in
integrating these patches?

Regards,

Dave Carrigan
Unix System Administrator
Amazon.com