Network Print Servers 1

[rocmills]

One of our drafters just asked me an interesting question... Is it possible to turn a workstation desktop into a print server to avoid having to route print jobs through the slow network server?

If so, how?

The workstations are all XP Pro service pack 2 machines, with 1 gig of memory. The server runs Windows 2000 Server Edition.

--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[Tightpants]

What I would do in your situation is this.

Connect the DesignJet 800 to the network in the same way as you would connect a workstation, ie. a CAT5 cable from the JetDirect card to the network switch or hub. Give it a fixed IP address.

Buy two external JetDirect boxes and configure them with fixed IP addresses. Connect each of the other two printers to each of the JetDirect boxes using a parallel cable. Connect the JetDirect boxes to the network using CAT5 cables. If you have no money to buy external JetDirect boxes then make two linux print servers using the instructions at

http://pigtail.net/LRP/printsrv/.

These will take the place of the JetDirect boxes, ie. they sit between the network and the printer.

Go to each workstation and delete all of the existing printers.

Go to your Windows 2000 Server and add the three printers as "local" printers. For each one, when you are asked for a port name, don't use LPT1 or anything like that. Instead add a new Standard TCP/IP port and use the IP address of the JetDirect card. Share the printers on the server.

Go to each workstation and open the Printers and Faxes window. Leave the window open and go to My Network Places and search for the server. In the My Network Places window you will see the three shared printers on the server. Select each one and drag it into the open Printers and Faxes window. This will create a connection to the shared printer and install the printer drivers locally (if you later update the drivers on the server the drivers will be updated automatically on the workstations).

When you send a print job from the workstation it will be sent to the Windows 2000 Server which will then pass the job onto the printer.

I wouldn't bother with the Window 95 machine as this will give you no benefits at all. You will still have to manually install local printers on each workstation. If you really don't want to put any load on your Windows 2000 Server then the alternative is to install each printer as a local printer on each workstation, but print to a Standard TCP/IP Port, ie. print straight to the IP address of the JetDirect card. This will give you really fast printing and the JetDirect card will queue the print jobs.

Don't physically connect any printer directly to any workstation using a parallel or USB cable.

If you visit

http://pigtail.net/LRP/printsrv/

there is an illustration at the top of the page which shows you how to connect it all together. Your Windows Server is one of the computers on the left hand side. The JetDirect box is the "print server".

Let me know how you get on. I am an architect (not an IT architect) and we use a similar setup in our office.

 

[rocmills]

Seems to me I should have prefaced my first post by saying that we want to do this without having to spend any money. We can get along the way we've been going, I was just looking for a down-and-dirty way to speed up print processing so that the workstations could be used more efficiently.

If setting up an "extra" computer to act as a print server will not, in fact, increase productivity, then I wont bother.

Tightpants... all of your suggestions sound great, but we don't want to spend $280 bucks buying JetDirect cards. We want to do this with the materials we have on hand, or very very little spending.

Bill... I know nothing of Linux, so wouldn't be comfortable using it. If 95 is insufficient for my needs, I could install a newer OS or use a different machine that already has a newer OS on it. That is, as I said above, if doing so would increase productivity/decrease the time spent waiting for print jobs to process.

--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[dkediger]

After looking at the specs for the DeskJet and the Samsung - I'm not entirely sure you're gonna be able to do much to improve CAD printing with those printers. The DesignJet is fine, but the others don't have the oomph for much CAD output.

 

[rocmills]

dkediger,

So our problem is not the network load, per se, but insufficient memory (i', assuming that your "oomph" meant memory) in the printers? The drafters would not "get back control" of their programs any faster if we used an extra computer as a print server?

--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[Tightpants]

You wont be able to make the printers print any quicker but you can do something to speed up the processing time and allow the drafters to get back control of their programs more quickly. You can do this by connecting the printers to the network as I suggested.

Your current limitation is the parallel connection between the workstation and the printer. That is why your workstations are taking ages to free up.

As you have no money to spend I seriously suggest you make a couple of linux print servers using the instructions at the link I have provided. I built two of these for free to get a couple of old LaserJets onto our network. We can now send big image files and CAD drawings to the LaserJets and the workstation is freed up in seconds.

Fortunately to make the linux print servers you don't need to know anything about linux. You just need to follow the step-by-step instructions to make a bootable floppy disk. When the machine boots from the floppy it just works. We have even ditched the keyboards and monitors because you don't need to do anything with them once they are running. The hour I spent making them has been saved many times over by simplifying the management of those printers.

 

[rocmills]

Alright, Tightpants, you win

Do I *need* to build two print servers, or will one suffice? Having access to the black and white Samsung is less important, that one can stay set up as a local printer on one of the workstations.

I will try to follow the instructions from that link either this weekend with some of the spare machines I have at home, or Monday using the spare machines at the office.

Will keep you informed as to my progress.

Thanks for all the help, everyone!

--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[rocmills]

Okay, maybe it's just because today is Monday... I'm having a hard time with the LRP pages. Got as far as step 3 - Download appropriate network card driver. I don't see my network card anywhere on the list - probably because it is a generic card. The card is brand new, though, can't I just use the driver disk it came with?



--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[Tightpants]

Unfortunately you cant use the drivers supplied with your new card because you are actually downloading the program which makes the print server work!

You might be better off trying to find a really old network card. I was fortunate because I had two 3Com cards available.

You might be able to configure the new card to work as an NE2000 clone, or find out what chipset is used so you can download the necessary file.

If you can't get it working you haven't lost anything. It would be worth getting the DesignJet 800 on the network to see if it works out better for you.

 

[rocmills]

Tightpants,

I have the machine set up as a print server, following the directions for that LRP link you posted. However, upon booting from the floppy I was instructed to create, it is asking for a "printerserver login:" and "password". There is nothing at the LRP page about a login or password. Now I'm stuck. What do I do now?



--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[Tightpants]

Once you reach this stage your print server is ready to receive jobs. You now need to go to your Windows 2000 Server and set up a local printer - follow the instructions on the web site in the section "How to setup a PC to talk to a Print Server." This is when you configure your Windows 2000 Server to print to a Standard TCP/IP Port.

However before you do this it is likely that you will need to change the IP address on the new print server. To change the IP address you need to follow the instructions in the section "how to assign a different IP address." To do this you will need to login on the print server at the login prompt described in your last post.

Once you have set the correct IP address it will stay fixed forever. Write the IP address in a prominent place on the case and you will never need to connect a monitor or keyboard again.

 

[rocmills]

Tightpants,

I'm lost.

You say "To do this you will need to login on the print server at the login prompt described in your last post."

BUT my last post says that I CAN'T LOGIN! I don't have the foggiest idea what username and password the Linux boot disk wants!

Making the IP address changes and setting up the print server on the file server is no biggie... but if I can't login.... what's the point?




--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[rocmills]

Hmmm... Here's something odd. A while back, a telephone technician was working on some of our equipment and we got to talking networks. He did some poking around and told me that, among other oddities, our network had an "illegal" IP address.

So today I ran ipconfig /all on the server and got the following information:

IP Address: 172.18.43.1

This does seem to be out-of-range for standard private network addresses, but I'm uncertain what to do about it. I know how to configure IP addresses for individual computers on home networks... is it basically the same for our file server? The file server connection also provides all workstations with internet access.

Color me more and more confused....


--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[Tightpants]

You need to login as root. You don't need a password.

According to RFC1597, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has reserved the following three blocks of the IP address space your use for private networks:
10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255

So it looks as though your address range is fine. It would be more common for a network like yours to use 192.168.1.X. I wouldn't recommend changing anything now because you might end up breaking something.

 

[rocmills]

Tightpants,

Whew! Thanks for that one, I was having nightmares about having to reassign *everything* LOL

When the drafters leave for lunch today, I am going to move the print server into the back room and attempt to finish up, assuming I really can login as "root" with no password.

Thanks for all your help and all your patience!



--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[rocmills]

From the page describing how to manually (our network type is not in their list) set your IP address for the print server...

The directions say to "enter your static IP address, item 1" - but what number am I supposed to enter here? The actual IP address of the server? An arbitrary IP address? I don't even know what the actual IP address of the print server is....

I have the same question for the other three items I'm supposed to change... What submask address, what broadcast address, and what gateway address????? Do I pull this information off the file/network server?

I figure experimentation can't cause too much harm, but I would greatly appreciate your continued assistance!



--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[rocmills]

Well, shitfire!

I got the print server set up, connected the Samsung, went to file/network server and added TCP/IP port as instructed, then installed the Samsung. The file server and all workstations can see the Samsung, they can add the Samsung as a printer, but nothing prints. No error messages... just nothing is coming out of the printer.

As instructed, I changed the IP addresses on the boot floppy as follows:

IP: 172.18.43.252
Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 172.18.43.1
Broadcast: 172.18.43.255

Should I swap out the printer... switch to the HP9300 instead of the Samsung?

Any clues?



--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[bcastner]

And your firewall settings?

 

[Tightpants]

Your IP settings look fine as long as another device on the network is not already using 172.18.43.252 as their IP address.

I agree with bcaster that your firewall might be stopping communications but your Windows 2000 Server is unlikely to have a firewall running on it.

Try running through the troubleshooting guide (just after Step 7 on the web site). My second print server did not work initially because I forgot to copy one of the files across to the floppy.

 

[rocmills]

Bill,

So far as I can ascertain, there is no firewall running on the W2000 server.

The HP Plotter is configured to IP address 172.18.43.239
I also have all the ipconfig /all info from each of the workstations and find no conflicting numbers.

However, on checking with the file server again, it seems to have re-set the IP info for the print server/Samsung. It is now reading 198 etc. Will reconfigure the port and try again.

Wait, argh, the changes I made to the boot floppy did not take. I will attempt again.



--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne

 

[rocmills]

Went to the troubleshooting page and followed the steps there:

"login as root, type q to drop to the command prompt."
WORKS

"Type lrpkg -l and you should see root, etc, log, local, modules, p9100"
WORKS

"Type ps ax | grep p91 and you should see at least a line like this /usr/sbin/p9100d 0"
WORKS


"Type lsmod and you should see lines like these
lp 5252 1
parport_pc 7636 1
parport 7344 1 [lp parport_pc]
and a last line with the name of your network card driver"

WORKS - except no last line with name of network card driver.


"Type cat /proc/interrupts | grep eth0 and you should see the IRQ number for eth0, it should not be zero"

DOES NOT WORK: Error message received:
"cat/proc/interrupts: NOT FOUND"



"Type cat/proc/ioports | grep par and you should see at least a line that says parport 0"

DOES NOT WORK: Error message received:
"cat/proc/ioports: NOT FOUND"

"Type ifconfig eth0 | grep inet and you should see a line like this: inet addr:192.168.10.252"

DOES NOT WORK: Error message received:
"eth0: error fetching interface information: device not found"

In addition, attempting to telnet into the print server IP address fails. And typing "netstat" on the print server does bring up the desired response.




--Roc
"Whatever one man can dream, another can accomplish" - Jules Verne