5    ASU Printer Shares

You can make printers hosted by Tru64 UNIX servers on which the ASU software is installed available to Windows users as printer shares.

Windows users can browse the network for printer shares and configure their Windows systems to use a printer share by using the Add Printer Wizard. Once configured, the printer that is associated with the printer share appears as a transparent extension to a user's local computing environment. For example, using an application such as Microsoft Word, users can print directly to the printer share, which forwards the jobs to the printer.

This chapter discusses the following topics:

See the ASU Installation and Administration Guide for information on creating ASU printer shares.

5.1    Planning Your Printing Operations

You should ensure that network print operations are efficient and cost-effective. Among the decisions that you need to make include the following:

5.1.1    Choosing Printers

Choosing print devices includes selecting from among devices that are designed specifically for network use. These devices offer options such as automatic port and emulation switching, dual paper bins, and double-sided printing. Before deciding on your network printers, consider the following questions:

5.1.2    Choosing Computers to Be Print Servers

On a network of any size, you probably will concentrate your printer installations at a few servers. A computer acting as a print server can act as a file server or database server at the same time. File operations have insignificant impact on printers that are attached directly to the server.

A dedicated print server may be desirable if a server is required to manage many frequently-used printers. The decision to combine print and file servers may depend on security concerns. While printers always should be available to those persons using them, you may want to restrict physical access to file servers by keeping them in secured rooms.

No special hardware requirements exist for print servers except that they have appropriate printers (output ports) for parallel or serial print devices. Managing a large number of printers or many large documents requires an adequate amount of memory. The ASU server can control many network-interface printers, depending on the server's processing capability, the amount of installed memory, and the size and number of documents typically sent to the print server. To maintain high server throughput levels, increase memory as you add print devices. Disk space requirements are minimal except in cases where large or numerous documents are likely to accumulate.

5.1.3    Planning How Users Access Printer Shares

Before creating a printer share, you need to be aware of ASU configuration options that can improve the flexibility and efficiency of network printing. With ASU, it is not necessary to have a one-to-one relationship between a printer share and a print devices. By associating printer shares and print devices in different ways, you can offer users flexibility in their printing operations. For example, you can configure the following:

5.1.4    Printer Drivers

Different hardware platforms and operating systems require different printer drivers. For example, to use a printer share created on an ASU server, a client running Windows NT on an Alpha computer requires the appropriate Alpha printer driver for that printer.

Printer drivers can be installed locally or can be provided by the ASU server. The ASU server stores printer drivers for Windows 95, Alpha, Power PC, MIPS, and x86-based clients in a disk share called PRINT$. The printer drivers are then available for clients to automatically download.

The ASU server determines whether incoming print requests are Alpha, Power PC, MIPS, or x86-based and automatically sends the appropriate driver to the client.

You must install the printer drivers on clients that are running Windows NT Version 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, or 4.0.

See the ASU Installation and Administration Guide for information on installing printer drivers.

Table 5-1 identifies settings that you can try for an unsupported print device. If your print device is not in this table, contact the manufacturer to determine if drivers are available.

Table 5-1:  Unsupported Print Devices

For Use
HPPCL (LaserJet) compatible Hewlett-Packard LaserJet Plus
Color PostScript QMS-ColorScript
35-font Plus font set or superset Apple LaserWriter® Plus
9-pin dot matrix IBM compatible IBM Proprinter
9-pin dot matrix Epson® compatible Epson FX-80 for narrow or FX-100 for wide carriage
24-pin dot matrix IBM 24-pin compatible IBM Proprinter X24
24-pin dot matrix Epson LQ compatible Epson LQ-1500

5.2    Print Share Properties

The following sections describes printer share properties.

5.2.1    Separator Page

The ASU server prints a separator page or banner automatically before each print job. You can alter the default banner page and create one more appropriate to your needs.

You use the net print command to set or change a separator page.

See the ASU Installation and Administration Guide and the net help command for more information on net commands.

5.2.2    Using a Print Processor Script

A print processor script can send print jobs directly to a file or terminal instead of to a printer, or to a remote Tru64 UNIX system using the uucp command, or to another Tru64 UNIX system process, such as troff or nroff.

When you create a print processor script, you must share a queue that uses it to allow users to access it. Users access this queue as they would any other print queue. To avoid affecting service to other users, execute scripts in the background. Table 5-2 describes the environment variables that you can use in print processor scripts.

Table 5-2:  Print Processor Script Environment Variables

Variable Description
$CLIENT The computer name from which the job was sent.
$COPIES The number of copies to be printed (1 and above).
$PRIO The Tru64 UNIX system lpr priority of the print job (1 to 39).
$DEST The Tru64 UNIX system lpr printer class (server queue) to which the job was sent.
$FILENAME The full path name of the file to be processed.

Follow these steps to create a print processor script:

  1. Use a text editor to create a shell script and save it in the lanman/customs directory.

  2. Make the script executable by using the chmod +x command.

  3. Use the net print /PROCESSOR:pathname command to configure the printer share to use the print processor script.

See the ASU Installation and Administration Guide and the net help command for more information on net commands.

5.2.3    Scheduling and Spooling Settings

One way to maximize use of print devices is to stagger printing times. For example, if printer traffic is heavy during the day, you can postpone printing of less important documents by routing them through a printer share that prints only during off-hours. When you specify printing times, the print spooler accepts documents at any time but it does not print to the destination print device until the designated start time. At the stop printing time, the spooler stops sending documents to the print device and saves any documents remaining until it is scheduled to start printing again.

Table 5-3 describes the scheduling and spooling options that you set by using the Scheduling tab of the Properties sheet for a printer or net commands.

Table 5-3:  Scheduling Options

Option Description net Command
Available Defines when the printer is available.

# net print /AFTER:time

# net print /UNTIL:time:time

Priority Sets up a varied priority print queue based on document priority.

# net print /PRIORITY:#

(1 is the highest and 9 the lowest)

Start printing after last page is spooled Prevents delays when the print server prints pages faster than clients can provide them. (Default cannot be changed.) No equivalent net command

See the ASU Installation and Administration Guide and the net help command for more information on net commands.

5.2.4    Controlling Access to Printer Shares

To control printer usage, set permissions for each printer share. By default, all of the shared printers that you create are available to all network users. To restrict access to a shared printer queue you must change its permission settings for a domain user account or group. Table 5-4 describes the permissions that you can set on printer shares. To change permissions on a printer share, you must be the owner of the printer or have been granted FullControl permission.

Table 5-4:  Printer Share Permissions

Permission Allows
No Access

No printing to the printer share

Print

Printing to the printer share

Manage Documents

Setting controls for documents and pausing, resuming, restarting, and deleting documents

Full Control

Print and Manage Documents permissions and:

  • Changing the printing order of documents

  • Pausing, resuming, or purging the printer

  • Changing print properties

  • Deleting the printer share

  • Changing permissions

  • Taking ownership

By default, Administrators, Print Operators, and Server Operators have Full Control permissions.

Although permissions are cumulative, the No Access permission overrides all other permissions.

5.2.5    Auditing Printer Shares

You can audit a printer share to track its usage. For a particular printer, you can specify the actions to audit for domain user accounts and groups. You can audit both successful and failed actions. The ASU server stores the information generated from auditing in a log file that you can view by using the Event Viewer. See Chapter 6 for more information about the Event Viewer.

To audit a printer share, you can enable the spooler event logging and use the User Manager for Domains to set the audit policy.

Table 5-5 describes the printer share events that you can audit.

Table 5-5:  Printer Share Audit Options

Option Audits

Print

Printing documents

Full Control

  • Changing job settings for documents

  • Pausing, restarting, moving, and deleting documents

  • Sharing a printer

  • Changing printer share properties

Delete

Deleting a printer share

Change Permissions

Changing printer share permissions

Take Ownership

Taking ownership

5.2.6    Custom Forms

Any user with FullControl permission can define a new form by using the server's Properties Forms property sheet. For example, you could create a form called Customer Receipt Form that uses letter-size paper and nonstandard margins. You also can create multiple forms with the same paper size or margins (or both) to meet specific user needs. For example, you can create forms that have unique names but the same paper size and image area (margins) to identify different departmental letterheads.

New form definitions are added to the print server's database and are stored per controller, not per printer. You assign forms to a specific print device and tray by using the printer's Properties Settings property sheet.

5.2.7    Setting Device-Specific Properties

Device-specific printer properties describe the physical configuration of a print device, such as which paper trays are loaded and how much memory a device has. These properties vary from device to device. When you create a printer share, default settings are used. Although default settings work for many printing needs, some special printing options, such as those available with PostScript printer drivers, require specific settings.

The following sections describe device-specific properties. To view or change device-specific properties select the printer icon in the Printers folder, select Properties on the Printer menu, and select the printer's Properties Device Settings tab.

5.2.7.1    Setting Printer Memory

Because page printers must store an entire page in memory, they require relatively large amounts of memory. If you are using a page printer, such as a laser printer, make sure that the amount of memory available in the device matches the value shown in the Device Settings tab. If the print device has substantially more or less memory than what is shown in the Device Settings tab, print throughput may suffer.

5.2.7.2    Using Print Forms

The ASU server uses a form-based printing model rather than a tray-based printing model. Under a form-based model, the Print Server administrator configures the ASU server by defining the form loaded in each paper source (tray). The form is defined using the following criteria:

Using Windows based applications running on a Windows NT based computer, each user can select a desired print form. This frees the user from having to know which tray contains which form. The ASU server interprets tray and form assignment data and sends instructions to the print device to select the correct tray.

Windows based applications can use different forms within a document. For example, you can use Envelope for the first page, Letterhead for the second page, and Letter for the third and following pages.

5.2.7.3    Choosing Font Types

Fonts are collections of characters and symbols that have a specific design and resolution. Print devices use three types of fonts:

The ASU server supports three types of screen fonts that can be reproduced on printers:

For each document, the client computer downloads required screen and soft fonts to the ASU server, which then sends them to the print device. To improve printing times, use device fonts which already are present at the print device.

Not all devices can use all three types of printer fonts. Pen plotters, for example, normally cannot use downloaded soft fonts or print raster screen fonts.

5.2.8    Setting Document Defaults

It is easy to confuse device-specific settings with document properties. Document properties do not rely on a device's physical settings. When applications create a new document, they often ask the printer for the default document settings.

Table 5-6 lists typical device-specific and document properties.

Table 5-6:  Typical Settings

Device-Specific Properties Document Properties
Color Number of copies
Resolution Page orientation
Memory Two-sided printing
Font cartridge name Collate copies
Form location Form
Plotter pen  

To view Document Properties for a printer share, open the Printers folder, select the printer, and then select Document Defaults on the File menu.

Note

Document properties that are set from an application always override document defaults set in the printer's property sheets. However, if an application does not set a document property (such as page orientation or paper size), the print device defaults to the document properties that were set in the printer's Document Properties sheets.