ppr-list-digest volume 3, number 45, message 1

Note: please don't spam any of the e-mail addresses which you see here. Follow this link if you want some addresses to misuse.


From: David Chappell <David.Chappell@mail.trincoll.edu>
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 12:08:23 -0500
Subject: Re: PPR: lprsrv ignoring -m

Marc Miller wrote:

> When we upgraded from PPR 1.3x to 1.42 we immediately noticed that jobs
> being sent to PPR over lprsrv were no longer executing our responder
> script.  All of our servers use the same NIS user/password maps, so when
> someone telnets to our central machines and prints something from pine, we
> want that user to get notified.
> 
> The man page lprsrv confirms this observation "It will always override an
> -m option (which shouldn't be in a switchset anyway)."
> 
> Why was -m disabled?  Is there a different set of options we should be
> using for that instead?  
> 
> For now, we're going to look at what we can change in the source code so
> that the -m switch in /usr/ppr/etc/printers/printername is preserved.
> 
It wasn't disabled.  The problem is that you were using a hack that 
exploited a bug in PPR 1.3x.  This bug has been fixed.  The bug was that 
options in a switchset were overriding options supplied by lprsrv.  Now 
that the bug is fixed, the -m option supplied by lprsrv overrides the 
one in your switchset.

The intent of a switchset is to provide defaults, not to lock options on 
particular values.  For example, you can set a switchset which includes 
- -F "*Duplex DuplexNoTumble" and duplexing will be on by default.  
However if a user sends a job through lprsrv from an DEC Unix system he 
can turn off duplex if he wants to by using DEC lpr's -K switch.

All of the servers that receive jobs over the network invoke ppr with 
the -m switch.  This is the "responder method" switch.  They do this 
because the means of sending a message to the user depends on how the 
job arrived.  The "samba" responder is used when jobs are received 
through Samba.  The "mail" responder is used for jobs received through 
lprsrv.  The opions -m none is used by papsrv since there isn't a good 
way to get messages back to Macs.  The servers also use the -r switch to 
supply a "return address" in a format appropriate to the network 
protocol by which the job arrived.

Since there is no value of the -m switch which applies regardless of the 
job's origin, putting an -m switch in a switchset is not a correct thing 
to do.  I realise that if all of your jobs come in by the same route you 
may be able to get away with it.  But you have to understand that PPR is 
designed to run as a multiprotocol system.  Unfortunately, this 
sometimes makes it hard to understand why it does what it does.

Of course, none of this solves your problem.  Perhaps you could tell us 
what you are trying to acomplish.  Could we see your responder script too?