Tektronix Phasershare Printer manual Windows NT network communication, TCP/IP connection

10 Windows NT

Windows NT network communication

TCP/IP connection

Basic concepts of TCP/IP printing

In Windows NT, printing via TCP/IP is accomplished using the LPR (Line Printer

Request) protocol. Because LPR was developed for UNIX systems, comparing

Windows NT and UNIX implementations may be helpful.

The LPR protocol is a host-to-host protocol, rather than a host-to-printer protocol. When printing via LPR, the computer sending the print job assumes that it is sending the job to another computer, or print server, which sends the job to the printer. In UNIX terminology, the print server is called a remote host. The print server can have several printers connected to it. The way to differentiate between different printers when spooling to the print server is to print to a specific remote queue.

The following table summarizes these concepts of TCP/IP printing and the terminology used in UNIX and Windows NT environments.

Concept	Description	UNIX term	NT term
Print server	An IP address or a DNS name	Remote host	Name or
	that is mapped to this address.		address of
	This is how your computer knows		host providing
	where to send the print job.		LPD
Print queue	For Tektronix printers, this is PS	Remote printer	Name of
	(PostScript) or AUTO	queue name	printer on that
	(AutoSelect).		machine

Your Tektronix printer emulates a print server. Tektronix printers are accessed by giving an NT host a remote host name that will point to the printer. This is true only if the print job is spooled directly to the printer via its internal network interface, and not through an external third-party print server. If the print job is spooled through an external third-party print server, the remote host name is the TCP/IP address of the print server and the remote queue name is the name of the queue for that print server.

112PhaserShare Networking Manual