LDAP-UX Client Services B.05.00 with Microsoft Windows Active Directory Server Administrator's Guide (obsolete beyond B.05.00)

4 LDAP printer configurator support
This chapter contains information describing how LDAP-UX supports the printer configurator, and
how to configure the printer configurator to control its behaviors.
4.1 Overview
Management of network printing is complex, and printers themselves are more complicated. Instead
of having printer configuration and information scattered over client systems and printer servers,
they can be stored and managed from a single repository. LDAP is suited to build a backend printer
configuration database. LDAP-UX enables the centralized management of printers, and the printer
entries can easily be distributed to clients to reduce concerns about synchronization of configuration
information. LDAP-UX comes with a printer configurator to consolidate printer configuration and
control of printer devices into the directory server for a central location of printer management.
4.1.1 Definitions
4.1.1.1 Printer services
HP-UX provides Line Printer Spooling System (LP spooler) to manage printers and print services
requests. LP spooler is a set of programs, shell scripts, and directories that control your printers
and the flow of data going to them. The LP spooler programs consist of commands such as lpadmin,
rlpdaemon programs, and lp command.
4.1.1.2 Printing protocol
The LP spooler system has built-in support for sending jobs to other hosts that running rlpdaemon.
rlpdaemon is a line printer daemon (LPD) for handling remote spool requests. This feaure enables
the user to install a printer on one host and make it accessible from other hosts. It also works with
printers/printservers that have network interfaces that support the LDP protocol. The LPD network
printing protocol is the widely used network printing protocol in the UNIX world.
4.1.1.3 Lp printer types
The LP spooler supports the following three types of printers:
• A network printer which is a printer connected to a network interface or printserver.
• A remote printer is a printer configured on a system other than the one you are logged into
when you submit a print request.
• A local printer which is a printer that is directly connected to your system.
NOTE: The LDAP printer configurator only supports the HP LP spooler system, remote printers,
network printers and printerservers that support Line Printer Daemon (LPD) protocol. It does not
support local printers.
4.2 How the LDAP printer configurator works
The Printer Configurator is a service daemon which provides the following functions:
• Periodically searches the existing printer entries stored in directory server
• Compares the search result with the master printer record file on each scheduled ldapsearch
• Adds the print configuration to client system for each new printer
• Deletes the printer from the client system for each removed printer
• Updates master printer record file
70 LDAP printer configurator support