"intelligent" load balancing or duplex detection

Elvin Lee elvlee at ucdavis.edu
Tue Aug 17 12:08:22 PDT 2004


Robert E A Harvey wrote:
> Elvin Lee wrote:
> 
>> The problem, of course, is that only one of the printers support 
>> duplexing. Is there a way that I can configure cups on the server to 
>> automatically send duplex jobs to one of the printers in the class, 
>> rather than choosing between the two?
> 
> 
> I've read the official reply, but it's got me thinking.  Are these 
> network connected? they sound like it, being an 'N' product.
> 
> It might be possible to create a totally separate duplex queue, pointing 
> separately  to the duplex machine, and print to that?  It would 
> certainly work with jetadmin on Solaris, I've done that sort of thing - 
> an A4 queue and an A5 queue onto the same machine.
> 
> Never tried it with CUPS - my system was quite straightforward, two 
> printers each with a unique queue, 'cos they were not physically close.

Yes, they are networked, and it is possible to have a duplex queue and a 
non-duplex queue. However, I would like to ideally have the feature I 
described previously because users will inevitably try printing duplex 
jobs to the non-duplex queue (or vice versa) and then we're back to 
square one.

Of course, the alternative would be to hack the PPD files to disable the 
ability to print duplex jobs to the printers in the non-duplex queue... 
Thus if they wanted to print duplex, they would have to select the other 
queue. This is a potential workaround, but not really a substitute -- I 
feel it lacks the functionality and robustness of the solution I 
suggested. But I may have to set up something of this sort as Fall 
quarter is rapidly approaching...

Thanks for taking the time to write. All help is appreciated. :)

Elvin




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