Understanding Network Printing

The key benefit of network printing is that it allows many users, working on diverse platforms, to share expensive print resources.

In a local printing environment, a user can only print to a printer cabled directly to one of the printer ports on the user's workstation. However, in a network printing environment, printers can be conveniently located anywhere on the network and shared by all network users.

NetWare_® Services for HP-UX adds the robust network print services of NetWare to the existing set of HP-UX print services, providing greater integration between the NetWare and HP-UX network printing environments.

Overview of NetWare Services Printing

The printing capabilities of NetWare Services allow you to share print resources among NetWare clients, including DOS and Windows clients. Implemented on the HP-UX platform and integrated with the UNIX lp system, these print services provide nearly the same level of printing functionality found in the native NetWare printing environment. (NetWare Services supports AppleTalk network printers but does not provide the underlying protocol stacks necessary for AppleTalk printing.)

NetWare Services provides the connectivity between NetWare clients and network printers through a series of steps.

A user sends a print job from an application on a NetWare workstation.
When a user sends a print job from an application on a NetWare client workstation, the application compiles the data entered by the user and passes it on to a print driver. The print driver generates the data and sends it along to default printer port on the workstation.
The print job travels from the NetWare workstation to the NetWare Services server.
The print job travels across the network and arrives at the NetWare Services server, where it is stored as a file in a designated NetWare directory. This directory is called a print queue. Print queues are assigned to network printers.
The print queue temporarily stores the print job.
The print job resides as a file in the print queue until the network printer is ready. Each network printer has a designated print server assigned to it. The print server monitors the print queues and transfers pending print jobs from the queues to the printer.
The print server transfers the print job to the network printer.
Network printers can be defined as local or remote and can be UNIX or NetWare printers. A local printer is a printer attached directly to the NetWare Services server; a remote printer is a printer attached to a UNIX or NetWare client workstation on the network, or directly to the network itself.
Most network printers require a port driver to print network print jobs. NetWare Services provides two types of port drivers: NPRINTER.EXE and the NPRINTER daemon. Network printers attached to DOS, Windows, WIn 95 or NT client workstations require NPRINTER.EXE running on the workstation. Network printers attached to NetWare Services servers or UNIX servers require the NPRINTER daemon running on the server.

The following figure illustrates these steps.

Figure 1-1 A typical path of a NetWare Services print job

For more information on PSERVER daemon, see "Using the PSERVER Daemon" in Chapter 5. For more information on NPRINTER, see Chapter 6, "Setting Up Printers Attached to Workstations or Servers."

Print Objects

Print queues, printers, and print servers are all defined as objects in NetWare Services and can be configured to run in either a NetWare 4 Directory Services environment or in a NetWare 2 or 3 bindery services environment.

NetWare Services provides two main utilities for creating and configuring these objects: NetWare Administrator (available on Windows clients) and PCONSOLE (available on DOS workstations).

Planning Your Printing Configuration

Deciding where to position your network printers is a crucial step in planning and configuring your printing environment. The following sections provide information on locating and managing output of network printers.

Locating Your Printers

Attaching all printers directly to servers may yield security and administrative advantages. However, attaching printers to workstations may yield increased flexibility and accessibility. The ideal mix for each installation is different and will change as your needs change.

The number of printers that can be attached to each server or workstation is limited first by the port hardware. Most Intel-based PCs have a maximum of three parallel and four serial ports.




	CAUTION: The type of port used must match the type of port on the printer. The printer must be set up and cabled properly as described in the printer's documentation.

Improving Output By Adding Resources

In some situations, you can increase the printing output on your network by using additional resources.

More than one printer may service a single queue. This can be useful when you have similar printers in close proximity by providing increased throughput and avoiding work stoppage if one printer fails.

More than one queue may be assigned to a single printer. Among other things, this allows a full queue attached to a failed printer to be assigned to a running printer, which will then print jobs from both the original and the newly added queue.

While only one print server can run on a server at a given time, that single print server can service up to 255 printers. Performance factors, however, may limit the number of printers that one print server can service effectively.

Network Printing Examples

The examples in this section illustrate how the three printing objects (print queue, printer, and print server) can be arranged as you require. It also demonstrates how the NetWare printing processes interact with the NetWare print objects and the HP-UX print service.

Simple Printing Setup

In this setup, a UNIX lp system printer is cabled to the printer port of a NetWare Services server running the PSERVER daemon. NetWare clients can select a printer by name or they can specify a print queue when sending print jobs to the network printer. The PSERVER daemon sends the print job from the queue to the network printer. HP-UX clients can still access the same network printer through the UNIX lp system.

Figure 1-2 Simple Printing Setup

Mid-Range Printing Setup

NetWare Services allow some printers to be cabled to DOS or Windows client workstations. In this scenario, the printer is directly attached to a workstation running either Windows or DOS. The NetWare utility NPRINTER.EXE is running on the workstation.

Figure 1-3 Mid-Range Printing

Complex Printing Setup

A complex printing environment may use any combination of these features:

One printer assigned to service multiple print queues
Multiple printers assigned to service one print queue
Multiple printing environments (such as DOS, Windows, Win 95, or NT printers, or printers attached directly to the network cabling)
Multiple print servers
Figure 1-4 Complex Printing