The Pharos LPD Server

The Pharos LPD Server provides a TCP/IP printing service that uses the RFC1179 Line Print Daemon (LPD) Protocol. This allows printing to take place from any RFC1179-compliant software, making printing to Pharos from UNIX, Macintosh, Novell and other platforms possible.

Microsoft supplies a TCP/IP Print Server, but using this server poses a number of problems:

• The server is not secure. A user could use the LPR program to place jobs directly into a printer's queue, bypassing the Pharos system (and printing for free)
• Older versions of the server cannot handle jobs being sent from UNIX and Macintosh clients at once.
• Some of the newer versions do not handle UNIX (or older versions of the Pharos Popups client) well.

By using the Pharos LPD Server, these problems are avoided. The Pharos LPD Server fully supports UNIX and Macintosh, and only allows printing to Pharos-controlled queues.

When to Use the LPD Server

The Pharos LPD Server should be used whenever a print system uses TCP/IP printing. TCP/IP printing is required if jobs are being sent to Pharos from non-Windows platforms (UNIX, Macintosh, Novell, etc). Furthermore, TCP/IP printing may be a desirable alternative to UNC (Windows) printing on Windows platforms as well.

Under UNC printing, print jobs are sent directly to the  queue using its \\SERVER\QUEUE UNC name. This means that UNC printing can be used in an authenticated environment, where each user is authenticated against the Windows server. In any environment where users are not authenticated against the Windows server, TCP/IP printing must be used. This means that TCP/IP printing must be used in Windows environments where users are not authenticated (e.g. where they are logged on with a guest account), as well as environments where users are authenticated against a non-Windows network.

Installing the LPD Server

By default, the LPD Server is installed as part of a Print Services installation, and can therefore be installed on any Print Server machine. If the Microsoft TCP/IP Print Server is already installed, Pharos will stop it (but not uninstall it) and set the Pharos LPD Server to be the service that automatically starts.

The Microsoft TCP/IP Print Server must remain disabled - running both it and the Pharos LPD Server at the same time will result in errors.

TCP/IP printing requires the address and port for the print service on Windows. The default service name for the TCP/IP print service is "printer" and the default port number is 515.

Using the LPD Server

To make use of the Pharos LPD Server once it is installed, the client machines that will be printing to it must have the ability to send print jobs via TCP/IP.

On UNIX machines, LPR is most commonly used for this. Create a standard TCP/IP printer on the UNIX machine or print server and adjust the print caps file to route printing to the Uniprint server:

Server name: Uniprint server IP address or name
Printer Name: name of Uniprint Queue

On the Macintosh, Pharos Popups can be used to send TCP/IP print jobs to the LPD Server. The Pharos Popup Client is available for OS X 10.7 and later. If Pharos Popups is not being used, other printing software that allows print jobs to be sent via TCP/IP must be present.

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