rlpconf not setting up printer correctly?

[itfellow]

Hi all, I hope this is just a newbie question and not something severe.

I'm running OS 5.0.5b.

I used rlpconf to set up a remote printer, called TEST, (an HP laser off of a linksys print server) just a few days ago and everything works just fine.

Today I am trying to set up another printer, GEN, through another print server (M305) using rlpconf, and everything seems to work fine, but when I try an lpadmin command, "lpadmin -pGEN -onobanner" I get the error message:

UX: lpadmin: ERROR: Error reading printer information for "GEN" (Bad File Number).

Even if I go back and use rlpconf to set up a another remote printer identical to TEST, I now get the same error above when I do the lpadmin command. I followed all rlpconf options exactly the same way as I did for TEST, but now the new printers error out this way. The lpadmin command works just fine with TEST.

The only difference I can see between the new configurations and TEST, is that no file is being created by rlpconf in /usr/spool/lp/admins//lp/interfaces/ (there is one for TEST, and I know I didn't create it). I tried creating interface files for the new printers but lpadmin still errors out.

Am I missing something simple?

 

[itfellow]

OK I figured out how to get around this problem. I searched through all the difference between the working printer's setup and the non-working printer's setup and found that only the /var/spool/lp/admins/lp/printers/<printer> contents were different.

For the working printer, its directory under /printers contained this:
alert.sh
alert.vars
configuration
users.deny

For the non-working printer, there was only "configuration" in this directory.

In addition, the configuration file for the working printer,test, looked like this:

Banner: on
Content types: simple
Device: /dev/null
Interface: /usr/spool/lp/model/dumb_int.sh
Printer type: unknown
Stty: 9600 cs8 -parenb
Number of banners: 1


While for the non-working printer, GEN, it looked like this:

Banner:
Device: GEN@M305
Interface:
Printer type:

I copied all of the config info from the working printer to the non-working printer configurationfile (since they are essentialy identical) and now lpadmin has no problem with GEN.

I am still confused about why the default setups for these printers ended up different. I made no manual changes to the printer, test, when I set it up, yet it had all of this stuff that GEN didn't.

 

[apeasecpc]

Since interface files aren't used for remote printers, it sounds to me like you had a previous printer called TEST set up at some point in time. It could be that the extra settings that made everything work were left over from the previous printer setup.

 

[itfellow]

That's a good point about the previous printer setup. I never thought of that. It's entirely possible, since I don't know a thing about the people who had this server before me.