Subject: Help: Printing in Linux (ppc) via a Dayna MiniEtherphrint device?

From: [email-masked] (Markus Kuschnik)
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 12:13:35 +0100

Dear Netatalk-Listmembers,

Since two weeks I, a very beginner concerning SuSE-Linux, am successfully
running Linux 7.1 on a 2GB-partition on an iMac (G3, 350 MHz), but, until
now, I didn't find a way to implement the HP LaserJet 4ML (300x300 dpi)
which is connected to the Mac via a Dayna Mini EtherPrint-device.  According
to Erik Oliver's answer to an extremely similar request - sent to this list
on March 04 2000 - there is a way by using netatalk. I already
after-installed the netatalk-package from the original cd, but I don't know
how to proceed in configuring netatalk for my needs.
Can anyone of you provide me with a step-by-step-instruction concerning the
netatalk-configuration in that case?
If I correctly understand the manual, I have to address the Dayna-Box like
a server in a network environment, but the box itself has no IP-address (a
name and serial-number it has, though).
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me,

Markus Kuschnik ([email-masked])

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From: Simon Hobson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 11:50:57 +0000

>Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me,

I'm not familiar with this particular print server but in general they seem
to follow some basic design features ...

If they support TCP/IP (not all of them do), then they usually come with a
default configuration which will attempt to get an address by BOOTP or
DHCP. If you have a suitable server then that may be enough.

If you have to manually configure them then there are usually a couple of
ways to do it :

1) Use ARP on a unix machine to relate an IP address and the MAC address.
>From the Unix machine you can then either Telnet or TFTP into the box and
configure it. With the NetGear servers I use, the existing config is
downloaded from the unit with TFTP, edited, and then uploaded with TFTP.

2) Use a configuration tool (usually windows based) supplied by the
manufacturer to configure it.

All this SHOULD be covered in the manuals, but I find that many of the
manuals are pitiful (to be polite !) in their lack of information. There is
often more info on the manufacturers web site.

Once you have the print server set up, you can use netcat to send you data
to it. You use netcat exactly as you would use cat to output on a terminal
- except that it puts the output to a specified network port.

Typically, you would edit the print filter along these lines :

(
all the print filter stuff to create the print data
) | nc myprinter.mydomain.com someportnumber

Simon

-
Simon Hobson, Technical Services Engineer
Colony Gift Corporation Limited
Lindal in Furness, Ulverston, Cumbria, LA12 0LD
Tel 01229 461100, Fax 01229 461101

Registered in England No. 1499611
Regd. Office : 100 New Bridge Street, London, EC4V 6JA.

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From: Thomas Kaiser <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 13:27:12 +0100

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001 12:13:35 +0100, Markus Kuschnik wrote:

> I didn't find a way to implement the HP LaserJet 4ML (300x300 dpi)
> which is connected to the Mac via a Dayna Mini EtherPrint-device.

The first step would be to connect to the Dayna. I assume that this device
speaks EtherTalk, so you cannot connect using LPR. To verify this type
'nbplkup =:Laserwriter' on the command line. If you the Dayna box will show
up, you have to use PAP instead of LPR. A good tutorial can be found here:

    <http://www.giub.unibe.ch/~eugster/appleprint.html>

If printing works locally from linux, you should simply share your printer
with an appropriate entry in papd.conf. This is covered in section 3.4 in
the tutorial above, and also in 'man papd'. You should take care of the
syntax for papd.conf and the way how to specify which local printer to use
(see <http://www.rodsbooks.com/network/network-netatalk.html> for details)

Regards,

Thomas

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From: SF Karel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 07:58:02 -0500

> DHCP. If you have a suitable server then that may be enough.

The Dayna Mini Etherprint doesn't support TCP/IP, only appletalk. See http://support.intel.com/support/dayna/etherfaq.htm

What you need to do is to send jobs to the printer from netatalk using
appletalk (with the 'pap' program), and configure your lpd daemon on
linux to pass jobs on to pap. Look for other messages on this list or in
the documentation for instructions on using pap.

steven

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From: Sak Wathanasin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 14:25:25 +0000

In reply to Markus Kuschnik's message of the 30/11/2001 at 12:13 +0100,

>a server in a network environment, but the box itself has no IP-address

This is because it is not an IP device; it is an ethertalk-localtalk 
bridge. It has a localtalk interface (min-DIN 8) and an ethernet 
interface (10 B2, thin ethernet). It connects your localtalk 
(APPleTAlk over serial cabking) LAN to your ethertalk (AppleTAlk oevr 
ethernet) LAN.

I have that connects my LaserWriter 4/600 (which is a localtalk-only 
printer) to the rest of my LAN. At one stage I had Newtons, and early 
PowerBooks on the localtalk LAN, but these days, only the printer is 
left. I can print to this printer from my Linux, Solaris and NT 
boxes. The last uses MS's AppleTalk stack . For Linux and Solaris, 
netatalk does indeed provide th eneeded functionality.

First install and configure netatalk so you have AppleTalk working on 
the Linux box. See the FAQ, readme's etc for this. You need to either 
compile in AppleTalk support into the kernel or build it as a module. 
At this point, you should be able to "see" the printer using nbplkup. 
For example, if I do that here, I get:

[root@fe root]# nbplkup
                              fe:AFPServer 
65280.145:128
                              fe:netatalk                           65280.145:4
                              fe:Workstation                        65280.145:4
                              Ph:  Power Macintosh 
65280.106:252
                              Ph:Workstation                        65280.106:4
                              cu:AFPServer                          65280.18:128
                              cu:netatalk                           65280.18:4
                              cu:Workstation                        65280.18:4
            LaserWriter 4/600 PS:LaserWriter 
65520.133:128  <--- !!!

All the devices are on net 65280 (ethertalk) except for the printer, 
which is on net 65520 (you don't have to worry about assigning these, 
Appletalk sorts itself out automagically).

To print to the printer, you need to use PAP (printer access 
protocol). 2 utilities, pap and papstatus comes with netatalk. Check 
that these work as follows:

[root@fe root]# papstatus -p "LaserWriter 4/600 PS"
status: idle

or

cat something.ps | pap -p "LaserWriter 4/600 PS"

(it has to be a PostScript file). Now all that is left is to 
integrate these into your printing system.

How you do this depends on which printing system you use. I use RH7.2 
and LPRng, so adapt as appropriate. Use the GUI tools or CLI as you 
see fit. First, create an entry for the printer in /etc/printcap. For 
mine, I use

laser|lp|LaserWriter LW600 on AppleTalk:\
     :cm=LaserWriter 4/600\
     :sd=/var/spool/lpd/laser:\
     :sh=true:\
     :lp=/dev/null:\
     :lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:pw#80:\
     :of=/usr/local/atalk/etc/filters/ofpap:\
     :if=/usr/local/atalk/etc/filters/ifpap:\
     :tf=/usr/local/atalk/etc/filters/tfpap:\
     :df=/usr/local/atalk/etc/filters/dfpap:

Do a "man printcap" to find out what it all means; "man psf" to find 
out about the filters available. Now create the spool directory named 
in the "sd=" clause; in my case, it is /var/spool/lpd/laser. Make 
sure the owner and permissions are correct:

/var/spool/lpd:
drwx------    2 lp       lp           1024 Nov 30 01:54 laser

/var/spool/lpd/laser:
-rw-------    1 lp       lp             33 Dec 27  1997 .paprc

The file .paprc has the name of the printer:

cat /var/spool/lpd/laser/.paprc
LaserWriter 4/600 PS:LaserWriter

That's about it: just restart the lpd and enable the printer. Test to 
check the filters are invokved automatically; eg

ls -l | lp

or

man -t pap | lp

Good luck!
-- 
Sak Wathanasin
Network Analysis Limited

Internet: [email-masked]
Phone: (+44) 24 76 41 99 96        Mobile: (+44) 79 70 75 19 12 
Fax: (+44) 24 76 69 06 90

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From: Charles Mangin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 16:36:08 -0500

i've got a couple of netatalk shared volumes that i'm trying to backup using retrospect. since there isn't a linux retrospect client (yet. last i heard it was in beta) i have the netatalk volumes mounted on the server, which it backs up as normal.

when i do a normal backup (copying only files that have been modified or created since the last run) all is well, and the performance is actually pretty good. the problem occurs when i do a periodic full backup (copying all files).

retrospect stops the backup with an error -42, too many files open. these shared volumes don't have any more files on them than the local server volumes do, or any of the other client machines, so there's something odd going on with either the linux filesystem or the netatalk sharing.

any ideas on this, or any suggestions of better ways to backup the netatalk machine (preferably via retrospect) would be greatly appreciated.

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From: Mac Conin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 09:56:03 +0100

Hi

we have the same problem here (netatalk 1.5.6).
The error occurs only with volumes shared with samba.
The other volumes do normally  - even with large numbers of very small files.
Maybe Retrospect tries to open as many concurrent files while backing up
very small data segments.?

At the moment we are copying that volume to a mac (it's only some Megs)
and back it up from there. ;(

A contact with Dantz and the discussion of the problem was not helpful
because Linux is not yet oficially supported. And - yes - the Linux
version is still in beta.

-- 

mit freundlichen grüssen

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