UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello all,

I am new to Unix and trying to diagnose a printing problem at my job.

We have an okidata printer that uses unix to print bills of lading. The printer does not print at all from any machine through unix.

the printer is on the network and can be pinged.

i can print a test page through windows to the printer.

all connections are tightly secured and issue started randomly after being used with no problems (before I started so I do not know if any troubleshooting has been done previously).

I have tried printing directly through unix administration using the lp commands.

any information would be extremely helpful!

I am assuming you are not using cups -

Starting from the ground floor:

Please post the output of lpstat [unix printer name]

where [unix printer name] could be: LADING01, foo13, Marty, ... whatever. The name users have for the printer.

An lpstat did show "waiting for rst4 to come up" but other printers running through the same server are fine..

This could be DNS (if your printer is defined as the name), firewall or routing perhaps.

Our most common problem is where a printer is replaced and the DNS not updated because the Windoze team define all the printers to their print server by IP address and forget about doing it properly. With DHCP, a replacement never gets the same address.

Beyond that, firewall could be possible. You are probably looking for access on ports 515 or 9100. It is possible to be routing, but I'd ask about access through the firewall if a ping works.


I hope that this helps,
Robin