LDAP-UX Client Services B.05.01 Administrator Guide for HP directory servers and Windows ADS

5 LDAP printer configurator support
This chapter contains information describing how LDAP-UX supports the printer configurator, how
to set up the printer schema, and how to configure the printer configurator to control its behaviors.
5.1 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 provide centralized printer management
by consolidating printer configuration and control of printer devices in the LDAP directory server.
5.1.1 Definitions
5.1.1.1 Printer services
HP-UX provides LP spooler system with the LP subsystem to manage printers and print services
requests. The LP subsystem is a collection of 18 programs that operate on the resources (files and
subdirectories) in LP spool directory to perform their functions, such as lpadmin, rlpdaemon
programs, and lp command.
5.1.1.2 Printing protocol
The LP spooler system has built-in support for sending jobs to other hosts that running rlpdaemon.
rlpdaemon is a 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.
5.1.1.3 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 LPD protocol. It does not support local printers.
5.2 How the LDAP printer configurator works
The Printer Configurator is a service daemon that provides the following functions:
• Periodically searches the existing printer entries stored in the LDAP 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
5.1 Overview 165