Large cups systems?

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Seth Galitzer wrote:

>> If you can't use a Windows/Acrobat8 workstation and take some time for
>> testing, you could go to the user and "print to file" with various
>> settings, and use these files to testprint them from a unix command
>> line.
> 
> I have now tried reprinting one of the original source documents from a
> Windows machine win Acrobat Reader 8.0, trying both PS v2 and PS v3 and
> couldn't make it die.  Argh, sometimes I hate Windows. 

Might be proofed innocent here, actually, in the end...

Your remaining issue could *still* be one of shaky network connectivity,
or buggy/old controller firmware on the printer side. It was originally
only hurting you more, because of the default ErrorPolicy used by your
CUPS.

7 print jobs from last night are too little data to base final conclu-
sions on.

> Actually, I hate
> Windows all the time.

OK, but pick the right reasons for your hate  :-)

>> What would also be of interest is the Ghostscript commandline
>> used by foomatic-rip. It's in the log, further above...

So you didn't find it??

> Speaking of logs, is there a way to adjust the built-in log rotation
> policy? 

CUPS doesn't do any much log rotating; if you see that happening,
it may be a system-wide log rotation service.

However, you can tweak the "MaxLogSize setting" of your cupsd.conf.

> I seem to be losing logs quickly, making it hard to do
> long-term debugging.  I suppose this is documented somewhere...

Of course.

"MaxLogSize 0" lets your error_log's harddisk usage grow until the
harddisk drive starts squeaking or bursting asunder.

This page is your friend, don't neglect it:

http://localhost:631/help/ref-cupsd-conf.html?TOPIC=References&QUERY=

It's worth at least going through each of the parameter names on the
right hand column, and read the explanations of those that poke your
interest. A worth while effort that lets you discover quite a few more
things we haven't discussed yet.

> Looks like Gentoo includes a very old version of hplip, but that hplip
> package includes a pretty recent version of hpijs.  I tried manually
> installing the latest hplip from tarball, but the drivers weren't listed
> in the cups gui.  Is there any special tapdance you need to do to get
> cups to find those files?  I thought they were dynamically read from
> /usr/share/ppds, but that doesn't appear to be the case (unless I'm
> missing something, which is entirely possible).

You're on your own which your Gentoo question. CUPS doesn't
know about hplip or hpijs. It just knows about foomatic-rip
(even though foomatic-rip isn't provided by CUPS), because
it has a presence in CUPS "filter" directory. So it is all
about making foomatic-rip (which is a Perl script) use the
right binaries.


>> I'm just expecting that in return you'll publically retract your open-
>> ing statement where you said about CUPS "the whole system seems so
>> flaky that if you sneeze too hard it falls apart", and bow three times
>> towards Maryland (CUPS' birth place) to make up for your sins...
> 
> OK, I withdraw that statement.  It seems my cups problems are largely my
> fault.  I think I will revise that statement so say "Windows seems so
> flaky...".  Any argument there? :)  Hrm, MD is East of me, as is Mecca.
>  Coincidence? ...

You alternatively bow to California, since this is Mike's new home
since a few months. :-)

> If you ever find yourself in KS, I'll buy you a beer. :)

Nah... that's at least worth a beer and a steak, given that your bows
are still missing   :-)

-- 
Kurt Pfeifle
System & Network Printing Consultant ---- Linux/Unix/Windows/Samba/CUPS
Infotec Deutschland GmbH  .....................  Hedelfinger Strasse 58
A RICOH Company  ...........................  D-70327 Stuttgart/Germany