Solaris

Hi, Im new in shell programming.
I need to know the availability for specific printers. We send requests from solaris to printers located at an NT server. My idea is creating a shell that will monitor availbaility and send an email when something is wrong.
I have a file with printers and its corresponding NT server like this:
monitored_printers.txt
printer1 srvrnt01
printer2 srvrnt02

I want the shell looks for all possible issues that prevent the printer works.

For each row in monitored_printers.txt loop
1. Check network connection between solaris and NT with "ping srvrnt01" command
2. Check printer status with "lpc status printer1"

What else should I check to know if printer is working ok?
Im not a root user, is it possible for me to detect all causes? My job is just detecting issues with the printers, Im not able to fix them.
If someone in the forum has a shell for doing this would be great, thanks.

There's no such script, you have to write it yourself. Depending on what is your requirement it could be very simple or a huge undertaking to write a script with cluster like HA features - A lot of work.

I can suggest you some ideas, the rest is up to you.

u will probably need to do a "while loop" with an inside "for loop"

monitor_printers.txt will be the list of all your printers and servers in the following

printer1
printer2
svrnt01
svrnt02

testprt.sh testnt.sh example are the different test scripts to test your printers/server alive.

/export/home/scripts an example of where on your unix box you might store your scripts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ loopcheck.sh~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

while true
do
for i in `cat /export/home/scripts/monitored_printers.txt`
do
/export/home/scripts/testprt.sh
/export/home/scripts/testnt.sh
done
sleep 300 # 5mins
done

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

chmod 755 /export/home/scripts/loopcheck.sh
nohup /export/home/scripts/loopcheck.sh &

The script will loop endlessly sleep 5mins wake up to run the "for loop" testing then sleep again.

the testprt.sh & testnt.sh script could include something like in the event cannot ping or cannot rectify then send email to your cellphone and you will be alerted.

read up unix man pages on test, if, while, for, mailx, lpstat


good luck

It looks that the unix administrator will take this task, thanks!