Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!athene!pcg From: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals Subject: Re: BSD lpr question Message-ID: Date: 26 Sep 90 13:34:10 GMT References: <24570@adm.BRL.MIL> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 35 Nntp-Posting-Host: odin In-reply-to: C.Elvin@ee.surrey.ac.uk's message of 21 Sep 90 11:36:19 GMT On 21 Sep 90 11:36:19 GMT, C.Elvin@ee.surrey.ac.uk said: Elvin> Ron Nash write: Nash> Is there a way to set up two line printers to appear as one Nash> printer queue? We have two laser printer queues that I want the Nash> users to see as a single printer. The system is running BSD 4.3. Get and install the PLP (public/portable line printer) package or MDQS. Both are available at major FTP sites near you... PLP was also posted (a fairly old version I think) to comp.sources.unix. They are both a definite improvement over BSD or USG line printing, and can be used also for batch jobs etc... Elvin> All output sent to ttyqf will be readable on ptyqf so have a Elvin> process which opens up ptyqf and read print jobs, and then write Elvin> this input to any number of 'real' printers according to any Elvin> chosen scheduling strategy. This is a quick and effective Elvin> solution and it only 'costs' one pseudo-tty pair. Even quicker would be to skip the pty pair business entirely -- tsk tsk. Just use an UNIX domain socket, like the LP daemon does, and write an lpd-to-lpd protocol Y-shaped-pipe daemon; say you listen on '/dev/lp1or2', and each print job is jsut copied to '/dev/lp1' or /dev/lp2', which are the UNIX domain sockets on which the respective 'real' lpds will br listening. Of course using such a Y-pipe filter is less efficient (each job is copied twice again, especially bad for printing stdouts) then using a daemon that will directly manager two output queues. PLP will do that, and also MDQS, if I remember well. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk