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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!hamblin.math.byu.edu!news.byu.edu!news.provo.novell.com!park.uvsc.edu!u.cc.utah.edu!cs.weber.edu!terry From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Print requests from Unix to VMS / TCPIP Date: 16 Dec 1993 04:56:33 GMT Organization: Weber State University, Ogden, UT Lines: 56 Message-ID: <2eopq1$ogu@u.cc.utah.edu> References: <2eo1a1$sf5@insosf1.infonet.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.weber.edu In article <2eo1a1$sf5@insosf1.infonet.net> lannie@ins.infonet.net writes: >Is it at all possible to send a remote print request from a Unix >system to a VMS system? We have 6 laser printers on our network. >They are set up via Pathworks. Three of them are connected to Pathworks >and a serial line from a Unix system. We want to phase out the Buffalo >boxes we use to connect both. We could do this by sending a remote >print request from the Wyse UNIX system, to our VAX or Alpha system. >Please e-mail me if possible. Boy are you in luck! This is one of the things that was being talked about on the mailing list netbios@arvidsjaur.anu.edu.au, which is for discussion about Andrew Tridgell's PD SMB server implementation for UNIX. There is already an "FTP-like" front end for UNIX to get files off/put files on a LanMan SMB server -- like "PathWorks for VMS (Lan Manager)". The one requirement is that you configure TCP as the transport. File sharing and printing using UNIX resources from SMB clients (such as those for DOS, Windows, NT and OS/2 that can be freely downloaded from mcrosoft.com -- check licensing restrictions) already works. Client connections for printing from UNIX to SMB servers have been discussed, and would be relativly simple to implement given the FTP client code, a compiler, and a little bit of work. --- At Weber, we have another soloution (called "dpr" for "DEC printer") which basically establishes a DECNet connection from an Ultrix box to the VMS box and streams data out to it -- and then the VMS process submits it as a print job (there is an open type in VMS that will do this for you magically). Both ends are based on only slightly modified versions of the sample code that comes with the Ultrix developer kit (sample code is loaded at /usr/<something>) and the VMS end will run under the default DECNet account. You will need one "pseudo-symbiont" per queue you wish to use on VMS unless you want to spend a little more time on coding both ends to send a header request across with the job. Other UNIX systems forward print requests to the Ultrix box via normal printcap/lpr facilities, and the Ultrix sends them through a "filter" including using dpr. Sorry, but I can't give out code for the Ultrix/VMS stuff without a great deal of hassle; rest assured that it took less than 4 hours of real work (including generating banner pages on the Ultrix box). It would be easy for anyone with an Ultrix with developement environment to duplicate. Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.