The Common Unix Printing System

• What is CUPS: Common Unix Printing System

• Features: what it can do that lpr / lpq / lprm (lp / lpstat / cancel) can't...

• What Systems are we deploying it on... and when

• Ink, the new print server

• Conclusions / Questions

• A replacement for the default printing commands:

  Function	Sun and HP	Linux and Alpha
  Print a file	lp -d printer filename	lpr -Pprinter filename
  Check Queue Status	lpstat -p printer	lpq -Pprinter
  Cancel a job	cancel job-id	lprm job-id

• The good news: all this still works.

• More good news: You can use lpr and friends on Sun/HP (and lp etc. on Linux and Alpha).

• The better news: You have more options. See the Documentation.

• The best news: "CUPS solves The Printing Problem" (reliability).

• Cups supports a full range of printers and file formats.

• Provides a modern command-line printing interface.

• Provides a common remote printing interface:

  lpr printer@printserver

  (The @printserver not needed for CV printers if you have CUPS_SERVER defined and set to ink; taken care of in CCE and /opt/local/share/cv [Murphy] setups).

• Intel/Linux and Alpha Systems in ER: Thursday 1999-11-18

• Sparc/Solaris Systems in ER: Thursday, 1999-11-18

• HP's and Sparc/Solaris Systems in IR: Tuesday, 1999-11-30

Once deployed in Edgemont Road, we will report to the other NRAO sites and encourage them to adopt it.

• Old solitaire (IPC, SunOS 4) being retired Dec 30 (or sooner).

• New system PRINTHOST (Intel/Linux) taking its logical place

• Reliability, Status will be better

• Web Interface for printer status, job status, and Documentation.

• New print server was needed for several reasons:
  1. Old one not Y2K compliant and too slow

  2. Difficulty in tracking and cancelling print jobs

  3. More capabilities needed by many users

  4. Deployment should be invisible and painless (!)