Managing the print service

Networking problems

You can encounter several types of problems while trying to get files printed over a network:

requests being sent to server printers might back up in the client queue.
requests sent to server printers might be backed up in the server queue.
a user might receive contradictory messages about whether a server printer has accepted a print request.

Jobs backed up in the client queue

There are three possible explanations for jobs backing up in the client queue:

The server system is down or the network between the client and server systems is down. To resolve this problem, run the reject command for all the server printers on your system:

reject printer-name
This stops new requests for those printers from being added to the queue. Once the system comes up again, and jobs start being taken from your queue, enter this command to allow new jobs to be queued:

accept printer-name
The server printer is disabled on the client system. To enable it, enter:

enable printer-name
ID mapping is not set up properly. See ``Administering ID mapping'' for more information.
The underlying System V network software was not set up properly. For details, see lpsystem(1M).

The server printer is disabled. To enable it, enter:

enable printer-name

If a remote print job is initially accepted but the user receives mail that the job has been rejected, there are two possibilities:

The client computer might be accepting requests while the server computer is rejecting requests.
The definition of the server printer on the client computer might not match the definition of that printer on the server computer. Specifically, the definitions of print job components such as filters, character sets, print wheels, and forms are not the same on the client and server systems. Identical definitions of these job components must be registered on both the client and the server systems for client users to access server printers.