lp: SysV/BSD interoperability

[Jim Hayes]

In article <160 at leibniz.UUCP> tpc at leibniz.UUCP (Tom Chmara) writes:
>We have a number of different workstations around here.  I'm having trouble
>trying to get the HP workstations (which use the AT&T System V spooling
>facilities) to be able to use the SUN file server's printer (SUN uses the
>Berkeley spooling facility).
>Any chance to get one to recognize/work with the other?  Am I destined to
>have to port the Berkeley stuff to the HP environment or vice-versa?
>	Please advise...
>		---tpc---

The Berkeley stuff ports quite easily into System V (or SVRx/BSD
hybrids) containing socket(), accept(), bind() and connect().  There
are only a couple of issues that might slow things, but nothing
significant.

1) Some System V TCP/IP environments (i.e. WIN/TCP for 3B2 circa last year)
   don't support UNIX domain sockets, so the code should be modified to 
   use an internet domain socket instead of the UNIX dom. /dev/printer.

2) Two new printcap fields are needed to set/reset System V tty control
   bits properly. 

3) The fork()ing/reclamation of print filters is BSD specific and needs
   some simple tweaking.

Porting lpd and friends to a new environment takes 8-10 hours the first time,
with each additional environment requiring less.  The outcome is a nice
standardized printing environment...

<disclaim.h>
Check your BSD license agreement before using their code.


-Jim Hayes                         Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale CA.
                                   hayes at amdcad.amd.com
/earth: file system full           {ucbvax|sun|decwrl}!amdcad!hayes
                                   These are not opinions of AMD.