User`s guide

4-52
Guide to Printers and Printing
Adding Support for Configuring a Network–Attached Printer
Note: The information in this article is provided for backward compatibility only. The
preferred method for adding new printer attachment definitions is through
attachment files. For more information, see ”Printer Attachment Files”, on page 4-42.
The following article discusses the information you need to add support for configuring a
network–attached printer. This information is not necessary to configure a network–attached
printer. It shows how support can be added to allow users to configure a non–supported
device that is to be attached to a network and drive one or more printers.
• Overview of Adding Support for Configuring Network–Attached Printers
• Naming a Device Configuration File
• Statement Types Available in a Device Configuration File
• Statement Format for a Device Configuration File
• Description of Statement Fields
• Comments in a Device Configuration File
• First Statement in a Device Configuration File
• Setting Up Menus and Prompts in a Device Configuration File
• Example of a Device Configuration File
Overview of Adding Support for Configuring Network–Attached Printers
Network–attached printers are printer devices that are not directly attached to the host
computer, but are driven by the host over the network. For example, a printer attached to an
Xstation is a network–attached printer. To configure a network–attached printer with the
mkvirprt command, you need a device configuration file.
A device configuration file extends the capability of the mkvirprt command for
network–attached printers. Specifically, a device configuration file can support six different
types of statements to create a dialog of menus and prompts. This dialog starts when you
use the mkvirprt command; you respond to the menus and prompts. The mkvirprt
command uses the information you enter to create a stanza in the /etc/qconfig file that is
customized for the device being configured. The device configuration file controls the queue
device name, backend = statement, and the file = statement in the /etc/qconfig stanza.
Naming a Device Configuration File
The device configuration file must have the filename extension .config and must be located
in the /usr/lib/lpd/pio/etc directory.
Statement Types Available in a Device Configuration File
Six different types of statements provide various capabilities for the dialog created in the
device configuration file:
M Menu header for list of menu choices
m Menu choice
l Menu choice list
V Prompt user for value
v Validation pipeline for entered value and error message
T Text to be placed in a variable or in a backend = statement.
Each statement consists of the following 10 fields: type, label, gotolabel, reserved1,
text, variable, reserved2, pipeline, msgid, and defmsg. The following matrix