Setting the printcap file on SunOS

Setting the printcap file on SunOS

The printcap file on SunOS control the spooling of plot files to the plotter. This web pages discusses the proper setup for the printcap file.
An example SUNOS printcap file follows:

#
# This is a sample of printcap entries used by various printers/plotters.
# All entries have been commented out to avoid complaints from the line
# printer daemon about printers that don't really exist.
#
lp|lphplj|default line printer:\
        :lp=:rm=sparc20:rp=lphplj:sd=/var/spool/lpd.sparc20:
lpbin:\
        :lp=:rm=sparc20:rp=lpbin:sd=/var/spool/lpd.sparc20.bin:

Each pair of uncommented lines defines a remote printer.
Some rules apply to the file format:
1. The LAST character of a line to be continued should be a backslash.
2. the first line of a printer definition should start in column one.
3. the first character of a continuation line is a TAB.
To define a remote printer you need to add a printcap entry in the following format:

PRINTERNAME:lp=:rm=REMOTEMACHINENAME:rp=REMOTEPRINTERNAME:sd=LOCALSPOOLDIRECTORY

A default printer line is required. It CAN be a remote print, like in the example above.

You can now make the plot output string look like either of the following:


cat %s | lp -d PRINTERNAME

OR

lp -d PRINTERNAME %s

One last option is to forget about the printcap file and just send the plot file to a remote machine (Solaris) that serves the plotter.


cat %s | rsh REMOTEMACHINENAME lp -d REMOTEPRINTERNAME