Skip to main content

How can I remote print from UNIX without passthrough printing?

When you have a host application that does not support passthrough printing (printing that goes through the Anzio telnet session), your options are somewhat limited.

The most common approach is to set up the LPR/LPD protocol to do the remote printing. This works by acting as a back channel from the UNIX spooler to redirect the output through LPR on the host to an LPD server (daemon) on the PC. With our standalone Print Wizard product, we provide PWLPD which is a robust LPD for the PC.

The second approach is to use netcat (freeware for UNIX), netprint (our product included with Print Wizard also) or H/P JetAdmin for UNIX. H/P JetAdmin redirects to the output from the UNIX to a specific printer attached to the network with a JetDirect device. Netcat simply dumps data to port 9100 at another IP (the data can then be captured and printed). Netprint is a UNIX utility included with our Print Wizard standalone product that sends data from UNIX to the PC's printer using port 9100 and Print Wizard on the PC.

The catch: These products work fine as long as the remote user's IP address is known in advance (a static IP). However if the user is coming in over the Internet from an ISP, the dynamic IP will change each time. To solve this problem, it is easiest to have a login script that runs which modifies the LP print queue for a specific user during a specific session. It can be a pain to set up, but works smoothly once done.

Our netprint program, though, does have the ability to determine dynamically what IP you're coming in from, and route a print job to that IP address, where you can have Print Wizard running.

Copyright © 2024 Rasmussen Software, Inc. Legal Information & Privacy Policy
Send comments and suggestions to rsi@anzio.com