Large cups systems?

[Bernd Krumböck]

> I'm using mostly PPDs, only a couple of raw queues due to deficiencies
> in the PPDs  I'm not sure what you mean by "interface scripts".  Is this
> some kind of lpr/printcap that's been shoved into cups, or something else?

Shell script for job filtering. Old UNIX relicts.  ;)

>
> The other major problem I have is that any print job that's more than
> 200KB or so will almost always block the queue.  The status will be
> either "Network host 'foo' is busy; will retry in X seconds..." (X is
> between 10 and 30 sec.) or "Connected to foo..."  It gets stuck in this
> state until I clear out the queue and then restart the queue.  Sometimes
> I have to restart the cups daemon.  In fact, I have one queue in this
> state right now and the blocking print job was a little over 500KB.
>
> CPU usage seems normal and I am usually able to stop the daemon without
> having to manually kill processes, but sometimes I do.  lpstat still
> responds at this time, it's just that jobs don't go through.

"The other major problem"? Did I miss the first one?

Estimation where the problem may be located:
*) filter
*) backend
*) printer hard- or firmware

I assume your queue becomes stopped due a backend error. Please check your CUPS error_log.

Helpful suggestions:
*) Try to set the printer error policy.
*) Try if you can reenable the printer with "cupsenable" or "accept".
*) Find and save a job which stopps up the queue. Set up a test queue for a printer next to you. Play around with other backends (lpd/socket) and PPD drivers (Postscript/PCL/...).

> For hardware, I'm actually running the server in a VM.  The CPU is
> identified as a 2.66MHz Xeon, I've allocated 2GB RAM, and am using the
> e1000 NIC for all communication.  I'm not touching swap at all.

Our servers have similar hardware.

> For software, I'm running cupsd and samba on a Linux (Gentoo) host.
> Here are the relevant version numbers:
> cups: 1.2.9
> foomatic-db: 20060720
> foomatic-db-engine: 3.0.20060720
> foomatic-db-ppds: 20060720
> foomatic-filters: 3.0.20060720
> foomatic-filters-ppds: 20070501
> hplip: 1.7.4a (includes hpijs 1.7.1)
> linux kernel: 2.6.22
>
> If that gives you any insight as to what might be my source of
> instability, I'd appreciate any advice you could offer.
>


regards!
Bernd