Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.25]
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.banyan-l
Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 02:28:59 PDT
From:         Craig Armstrong <craiga@SPOCK.DIS.CCCD.EDU>
Subject: re: LPD (sharing BPRINT)
              "Ian=Brabham%CC%Monash%BANYAN.CC.MONASH.EDU.AU@VM1.CC.UAKRON.EDU"
              at Sep 4, 92 11:21 am

Ian, John, and others...

> John and others,
>
> >Isn't it possible to write LPD in such a way that it calls the existing
> >bprint utility without having to have a version specific copy of bprint
> >included in the LPD service?  Can any of the toolkit guru's out there answer
> >this?  I guess I'm assuming a copy of bprint exists as part of Vines even if
> >the toolkit is not installed but I have no way to prove this.
>
> In the rev 3 and rev 4 series toolkits /disk1/local/bin/bprint is the
> ONLY toolkit interface to the Banyan print system provided.  This program
> according to the documentation may be freely distributed with any third
> party service that requires it.  It is only provided with the toolkit
> software and is not native on a base server.
>
Correct.. BPRINT only exists if you have the toolkit. And... yes it is
possible to write the LPD service without requiring BPRINT. I'm not
familiar with LPD but I aquired the source to UPRINT (same functions as
LPD) from PG&E and modified it to talk directly to VINES print services
thru low level RPC interfaces. By doing so, I was not obligated to put
BPRINT on all my servers. OF course, the RPC interface is not documented
by Banyan and they probably whould not like me to publish it! :-) Good
news is that the next toolkit will have a BPS interface so Stephan and
others can then talk directly to BPS.

> As the current unix version of bprint does not know about rev 5 queues and
> as it is the mechanism used by Brians LPD service, that LPD service cannot
> print to rev 5 queues.  Hence Brians request for a REV 5 PRINT QUEUE AWARE
> VERSION OF THE UNIX BPRINT PROGRAM so he may update his lpd service.
>
Ian, I'm inclined to say the version does not matter because of the fact
the RPC interface that is used by BPRINT (and SETPRINT) is based on RPC's.
From all my hacking since 3.xx I've found that Banyan is consistant in
not changing/removing existing calls. Though many new RPC's exist in the
5.xx BPS, the 3.xx and 4.xx calls should still be in the kernal thus
allowing pre-5.xx BPRINT to work (of course none of the 5.xx features).

Truth of the matter is though, I haven't had time to "explore" the
5.xx BPS to see what is going on. Chances are you be correct in your
statement since my windows version of SETPRINT is blowing chuncks on
5.xx even with the trivial RPC calls. I KNOW those guys at Banyan love
to see me spend 6 months modifiying all my utilities to get around
their "improvements"!!!! :-)
>
> Surely someone out there has a copy of the rev 5 toolkit and can share with
> the list whether BPRINT still exists and whether it works with rev 5 print
> queues and does the rev 5 toolkit have a real print API set.  I've ordered
> my copy but it is nowhere in sight yet.
>

Yes..... Will upload to csus.edu and also put it on my server at
infoservices1.cccd.edu (159.115.1.1).

--

****************************************************************************
*  Craig Armstrong - VINES hack...             craiga@spock.dis.cccd.edu   *
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