Subject: [netatalk-admins] Large Print Job Rendered Netatalk Print Server Unuseable

From: "Bill Tribley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 12:09:42 +0900

I set up Netatalk to print to a HP 5si centronics interface printer with a
PostScript module (i.e. no GhostTalk or filters needed). The printer is
plugged directly into the Linux server parallel port, and there are no other
printers set up on the box, or referred to as remote printers. I set up a
few Macs on our network for printing and we were sitting pretty. Except for
the wait until all pages out before print starts problem (netatalk design
issue) printing was completely normal.

Then someone submitted a 600 page print job (we do one once per week or
more - main reason for getting the big printer!). Netatalk disappeared -
i.e. not one sheet of paper came out of the printer (the accepting data
light did not even blink!), even though the Mac indicated all pages had been
printed. After that, attempts to print crashed any Mac that tried (yes,
crashed - computer lockup, reboot needed). Printing from Netscape on the
Linux box is fine, so no problems with the normal print routines.

I rebooted the Linux server. Now, any attempts to print from the macs result
in a
PostScript error being reported to the Macs. The printer still shows up in
the chooser fine. Linux printing still OK.

I did discover a Linux server configuration problem - /var/tmp was
accidentally left on a volume with limited space. It is highly probable that
the print attempt overflowed the root volume. There is now about 40M free on
that volume, and the rest of the server is working fine. In the spool folder
I found what looks like the job and the lock file. I deleted them both, no
change.

Any ideas? I can't even figure out how to get netatalk to give me a verbose
log so I can troubleshoot the thing...

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 1998 13:06:08 -0500

> From:    "Bill Tribley" <[email-masked]>
> To:      <[email-masked]>

> log so I can troubleshoot the thing...

papd logs to syslog.  Look at syslog.conf, maybe change it so it reads

	*.debug /var/adm/messages

restart syslogd, watch what papd says.

:wes