Adding Printers in UNIX/Linux
76
AXIS 5400+ / AXIS 5600+ User’s Manual
PROS
A protocol developed at Axis. Comes in two versions;
named pipe
(PROS A) and
filter
(PROS B).
PROS A
Advantages
The AXIS 5400+/AXIS 5600+ appears as a device to the system. This
makes all filter and model options available. It provides accounting and
status logging. Supports bi-directional printing. The printer information
read back can be viewed in a log file.
PROS A
Limitations
A ‘C’ compiler is required to build the PROS A drivers.
Note:
PROS B
Advantages
It provides accounting and status logging. Supports bi-directional
printing. The printer information read back can be viewed in a log file.
PROS B
Limitations
A ‘C’ compiler is required to build the PROS B drivers and in the case of
BSD, it may
conflict with other input or output filters. It does not allow
both input and output filters. Interface programs can not be used in
System V
.
Reverse Telnet
Often used for printing via a terminal server printer port. Only
recommended if you already have a Reverse Telnet driver installed.
Advantages:
Easy to set up with previously installed Reverse Telnet drivers.
Limitations:
No status logging. Drivers are not supplied with the print server. Existing
drivers may be slow.
Other UNIX/Linux
Systems
Most UNIX/Linux systems resemble either BSD or System V and so with
some ingenuity, a solution can also be devised for other variants.
If the system has BSD socket type networking support, then
prosbsd
(in
the
bsd
directory of the AXIS 5400+/AXIS 5600+) can be used as a
starting point. It receives print data from
stdin
, and writes a log file to
stderr
. Nothing is written to
stdout
.
Alternatively, FTP may be used. It is a good idea to use
bsd/ftp_bsd
or
sysv/ftp_sysv
as a starting point.
IBM MVS Systems
A sample JCL script,
jclex
, is available in the
mvs
directory of the print
server. It gives an example of how to print a file from an MVS mainframe
to an AXIS 5400+/AXIS 5600+ using FTP.
You can download a ‘C’ compiler from
http://www.gnu.org/
