Q: What are the advantages of OM Plus over the standard UNIX lp spooling system found with commercial UNIX and Linux installations

A: OM Plus’ advanced print spooler product suite provides an output management solution which enables advanced document delivery from one or more sources–unlike UNIX lp. OM Plus also differs from Unix printing because it goes across complex networks, to multiple destinations. It has powerful rules processing for flexible event based actions and has a strong centralized administration structure. That’s something you won’t find with Unix lp based Unix printing.    The list below includes some of the many advantages of OM Plus over the capabilities of the UNIX lp. Delivery confirmation (all the way to the output tray) - not part of standard UNIX printing Auto routing based on print job meta-data Is a print job allowed to print in color or black and white only Number of pages limit exceeded automatically sends large jobs to production printers  User not permitted to print on production printer, re-route to network printer  Many more...... Load balancing across multiple printers - not part of standard UNIX printing Automated methods for notification of print failure - not part of standard UNIX printing Fail-over/Print re-direction in case of failure (in unattended print mode) - not part of standard UNIX printing Print to hold Queue for confidential print -not part of standard UNIX printing Reprint at page level (e.g. Checks) -not part of standard UNIX printing Bundling of separate jobs into a single print file -not part of standard UNIX printing Ensuring proper forms are mounted prior to print (i.e. checks) -not part of standard UNIX printing Preventing others from “over-printing” on mounted forms Delay purge functions of print jobs to enable viewing/re-printing out side of application -not part of standard UNIX printing Managing print post processing events (filter processes) View to validate WYSIWYG Scalability to support large numbers of printers defined to a single server Detailed accounting logs for managing internal departmental costs and charge backs Printer Management Tools such as PJL and SNMP to collect printer health info -not part of standard UNIX printing Automated finishing commands not available in application -not part of standard UNIX printing Archiving functions – for short/med terms research, re-print -not part of standard UNIX printing Batch printing tools

Q: I am planning on downloading and testing OM Plus for Windows. What are the system requirements? What are they for OM Plus for Unix?

A: Windows Client machine:  RAM:  128Mb+  CPU:  333MHz+  Java Runtime Engine: 1.2 or higher  Hard Drive Free Space (at least 33 meg)  --10 MB for OM Plus Java Client  --2 MB for Output Client  --21 MB for Java Runtime Engine Server Machine:  RAM: 256Mb+  CPU:  500MHz+  Java Runtime Engine: 1.2 or higher  Hard Drive Free Space (somewhat dependent on how you use OM Plus)  --10 MB for OM Plus Java Client  --2 MB for Output Client (optional)  --11 meg for OM Plus software to be installed (minimum requirement to install). More space is required as more jobs get spooled to OM Plus.  A suggested working environment is 2 GB. If you have any questions please contact Plus Technologies Support. UNIX Printing Because OM Plus runs on over 14 different Unix versions, please contact Plus Technologies support for more details regarding your version of Unix. The basic OM Plus product will install in 50 MB. A suggested working environment is 1 GB.

Q: I just downloaded OM from Plus Technologies’ web site. How can I install it?  It is in cpio format and I don’t know what to do with it.

A: If you downloaded it to your Windows based system, BINARY transfer the file to your Unix system’s /tmp directory.  Then run “cpio –icv < [cpio_file_name] from your /tmp directory to un-cpio the files. Once you are done, type ./ominstall (for OM Plus ) to install.

Q: I have successfully installed OM Plus.  What do I need to do to setup test printers to evaluate this product?  I used “lp” commands and OM Plus doesn’t seem to be working or doing anything.

A: OM Plus is totally independent from native Unix lp.  You first need to setup printers to use OM Plus. Use “dccadmin” command to access OM Plus’ admin utilities. Again, OM Plus is independent from “lp” and in order to use OM Plus, you need to re-define all your printers to OM Plus.

Q: I would like to use Windows Terminal Server to access the OM Plus Java GUI to provide access to other users. Is this legal and will I run into any problems?

A: Yes, this is OK, it is not against our license agreement and there are no known issues with using Windows 2000 Terminal Server and the OM Plus Java GUI. However, you can not use Windows 2000 Terminal Server to operate an OM Plus server to spool a new job to OM Plus and start and stop OM Plus services.

Q: I just purchased my OM Plus from Plus Technologies (I installed it originally as a trial) and received a media kit. Do I need to re-install it even though it seems to be working fine?

A: If you have downloaded a demo version from Plus Technologies’ web site, you do need to re-install OM Plus. The web version is a demo version of OM Plus and it will display “DEMO SOFTWARE ONLY” in your dccstat screen.  This message will not go away unless you install OM Plus with the new media kit you received from Plus Technologies. If you installed your demo version using a demo CD from Plus Technologies, you need to register this copy of OM Plus to get rid of “xx days remaining to register” message on your dccstat screen.  No re-installation of OM Plus is required.

Q: I downloaded the Linux version of OM Plus from Plus Technologies’ web site.  What do I need to do to install OM Plus?

A: Use the standard rpm installation command.      rpm –i

Q: What do I need to do to register OM/LP Plus?

A: When you purchase an OM/LP Plus system, you will receive a fax form with it. You need to fill it out and fax it back to Plus Technologies at 937-344-0444 to receive a validation code. You can find your product key by going to dccadmin --> Utilities --> System Registration menu.  Plus Technologies’ Technical Support Team will fax your registration form within 24 hours.

Q: I just requested an upgrade to my LP/OM Plus and received a cpio file.  What command do I use to install it?

A: Make sure that none of the OM/LP Plus processes are running by running the “ps –ef|grep dcc” command. If one or more OM/LP Plus process(es) is running at the time of upgrade, it may harm your OM/LP Plus system. Once you have the cpio file on your Unix system, run “cpio –icv < [full_path_to_your_cpio_file]/cpiorel1.bin” while you are in /tmp directory. Once you have un-cpioed the files into /tmp directory, run ./lppinstall from your /tmp directory to install/upgrade your OM/LP Plus System.

Q: I am an OM/LP Plus user and recently received an upgrade CD.  What do I need to do before I upgrade? Will I have to re-configure all of my printers after the upgrade?

A: Make sure that you are not running any OM/LP Plus services (dccbkst, dccbkadm, dccompser, dccsched, dcce2enot, and etc).  You can do a look up on all the “dcc” processes (ps –ef|grep dcc) to confirm what OM/LP Plus processes are currently active. If you have “lp” linked to OM/LP Plus, you MUST run dcclpunlink before you upgrade.  Once you have stopped all “dcc*” processes and unlinked your “lp” from OM/LP Plus, you can run the install script to upgrade OM/LP Plus.  Your printer configurations will not be affected by the upgrade.  This upgrade processe takes only a few minutes.

Q:I have a Sun Solaris box and trying to start your lpd(dcclpdser), however, it keeps telling me that some other LPD process is currently active. When I try to start the process from dccadmin --> services, it says the same messages and gives me some instructions on how to stop the native lp’s lpd. However, "nlsadmin -k tcp" does not seem to do anything. When I do "nlsadmin -x" tcp listener shows up as "INACTIVE"  What do I do now to get your lpd service up?

A: The newer version(s) of Solaris work a little differently. You first need to comment out the printer line in /etc/inet/inetd.conf file. # #Print Protocol Adaptor - DSD listener # #printer stream tcp    nowait  root  /usr/lib/print/in.lpdin.lpd # Then do kill -1 to the inetd process. Now you are ready to fire off our lpd server.

Q: While web surfing, I came across a paper that implied that old versions of LP Plus are vulnerable to a "denial of service" attack. Is this true and if so, what can I do about it?

A: It is true that older versions of LP Plus (version 3.2.2 and prior) are vulnerable to a denial of service attack. The vulnerability has to do with file permissions within the system. To be vulnerable the saboteur must have access to the system’s command line. This issue has since been resolved and is corrected in LP Plus version 3.3 and later (available since 9/2000). Any LP Plus with a valid Support contract can request a version upgrade without charge.

Q: I am using a DIGI Port Server II. Every time I print, I lose the last page or two of the report.  What can I do to fix this issue?

A: If you have a DIGI Port Server II, we recommend that you run real port mode on these servers. Yes, you can run telnet mode or termserve mode; however, it will possibly lose a page or two at the end of your report. Real port mode should prevent you from losing data on your report. If you already running real port mode and are still losing your data at the end of your report, it means that you don’t have your printer port open at all times.  According to DIGI’s manual, you need to have your port open at all times for your printer port. The following is only one of several ways to keep the printer port open. Set up a script in /usr/bin called holdopen.sh ( stty 9600 while true do sleep 10000 done ) Of course you put whatever speed or other option needed by the printer in the stty line. Then you make the file executable. -rwxr-xr-x 1 root other 46 oct 30 09:41 holdopen.sh Then put a line in inittab. b08::respawn:/usr/bin/holdopen.sh b98m is the DIGI port for my printer. The port will be opened on system boot and stay open. *This information is provided by NCR Corporation*

Q: I cannot start the OM/LP Plus scheduler.  When I try to start the OM/LP Plus scheduler, I receive LPP362W: unable to get shared memory.

A: You do not have enough shared memory for OM/LP Plus. Type dccadmin and go to Setup. Scroll down to System Defaults and hit enter.  Lower Maximum Requests and/or Maximum Destinations.  Increase your system shared memory size.

Q: When I print, only the first line appears on the page and I get several blank pages. Where is the rest of my report?

A: Your printer is not converting LF (line feed) to CRLF (carriage return line feed) when the line does not end with CRLF. This will cause your report to stair step and you will only see one line of the report. Check your printer settings in dccadmin. If LF(line feed) to CRLF(Carriage return line feed) is not enabled, enable it and try it again. If your CRLF conversion is turned on and still stair steps, you need to do the following.  Create a directory in $LPHOME/prtcntl directory with the same name as your printer name.  ex:)  if your printer name is lp0, create a directory called lp0 in $LPHOME/prtcntl Create a file call preload with following escape sequence in your newly created directory  ex:) $LPHOME/prtcntl/lp0/preload ESC&k2G (Hex: 1B266B3247

Q: I recently purchased more destination licenses from Plus Technologies.  However, I did not receive anything from Plus Technologies. Where is my upgrade or what do I have to do to get my extra number of licenses?

A: When you get an upgrade license, you should receive a new registration form from Plus Technologies. Please fill it out and fax it to Plus Technologies at 937-743-8575 and Plus Technologies will issue you a new validation code that will activate your OM/LP Plus for the new number of destinations. If you did not receive a new registration form, please contact Plus Technologies’ support at support@plustechnologies.com or call them at 877-899-7587 or 937-384-0444 and ask for Plus Technologies support. You must provide them with your new product key information when you e-mail or call the Plus Technologies support team.

Q: I have a printer that requires a pre-load at all times.  Is there a way to get the pre-load sent down to the printer at all times without having to do –p on the command line at spool time?

A: Make a new directory with the same name as your printer name in $LPHOME/prtcntl directory then copy your preload file into this directory. So, if you have a printer name “lp0”, you will make a new directory called lp0 in $LPHOME/prtcntl.  ($LPHOME/prtcntl/lp0)  Then copy your preload & postload file in your new directory. By doing this, OM/LP Plus will spool all the jobs to lp0 with these files. (preload will always be appended in front of your report and postload at the end of your report)

Q: I am having a problem purging my jobs from dccstat. My purge delay is set to 300 seconds and all the jobs are set to purge (P column is set to Y). How can I purge these jobs?

A: It usually means either your scheduler (dccsched) is not running or all of your printers are disabled. Check and see whether your scheduler is up and if it is, make sure that at least one of your printers is “Enabled”.

Q: I am running LP Plus 3.1.7. I tried to print a range of pages for one of my reports, but have had no luck getting this range print to work.  What do I need to do to make this work?

A: CD to $LPHOME/ffe and type “touch none” from command line.  This should enable your range print.

Q: My application will not let me change the print command from “lp” to “dcclp”. Can I still use OM/LP Plus to manage my print jobs?

A: Yes!  Run dcclplink from the command line.  This script will save your lp to lp.lpp and link dcclp to lp.  This way you can still use the “lp” command and use OM/LP Plus.

Q: I am using both OM/LP Plus and UNIX “lp” and my lp is now linked to “dcclp”. When I do “lpstat” it used to show me the REAL “lpstat” but now it shows only OM/LP Plus’ “lpstat”. How can I get my real “lpstat” back to see the status of my “lp” jobs?

A: When you use “dcclplink” script to link OM/LP Plus to your “lp”, we link the following files to OM/LP Plus: lp, lpstat and lpadmin.  Since you need to use lpstat and lpadmin commands to use your current “lp”, you can do either of these two. Unlink “lp” from OM/LP Plus by running “dcclpunlink” script. Then run “lplinkonly”. This will only link “lp” to OM/LP Plus, “lpstat” and “lpadmin” will not be linked to OM/LP Plus. When your run “dcclplink”, it copies “lpstat” to “lpstat.lpp” and “lpadmin” to “lpadmin.lpp”. You can run “lpstat.lpp” and “lpadmin.lpp” to use your original unix “lpstat” and “lpadmin” without unlinking your “lp” from OM/LP Plus.

Q: What do I need to do to make OM Plus fax out my reports via VSI-FAX?

A: There are few things that need to done to make OM Plus output to your VSI-FAX. Create a new user in VSI-FAX called OMPlus from $LPHOME/shells directory, copy gnp-OMPlus.sh & tnp-OMPlus.sh to $VSIFAX/lib/enp directory. Create a new destination in OM Plus. ex:  dcclp –d fax –o fn=123-456-7890 /etc/profile  (OM Plus will fax your /etc/profile to 123-456-7890 fax number.)

Q: I am a current LP Plus user and wanting to upgrade to OM Plus.  What is the easiest way to go from LP Plus to OM Plus? I have over 1000 printers and don’t want to re-configure those printers when I get the OM Plus in place.  Can you please help?

A: If you are planning on putting OM Plus on the server where LP Plus is installed, just install OM Plus on top of LP Plus and the OM Plus installation will convert most necessary files to OM Plus format. However, if you had some security setup for LP Plus, you must run dccsecconv to convert LP Plus security to OM Plus security.

Q: Does LP Plus offer a tiered administration of UNIX print queues such that certain users/helpdesk personnel are allowed to control their own or a range of printers or a range of print queues. Is it browser based and still retains the flexibility of command driven administration for the more experienced UNIX administrators?

A: Within both the LP Plus and OM Plus security administration system, users can be set up to be limited to access only their own jobs/queues, jobs/queues for groups to which they belong, or over all jobs/queues.  For example, the administrator can set up a user to be able to mount Forms in the group they belong to, but then have that same user not be able to View any jobs whatsoever. There are over 30 parameters in which security may be set for per user or group. This also applies to the HTML interface and it is done through the browser rather than character-based screen.

Q: Do LP Plus/OM Plus handle generic lp - d printer -f form -n # copies -o options the same way as it does in Unix? If existing applications use these arguments to the command then LP Plus/OM Plus would need to translate them seamlessly so that they can drive the printer appropriately. Of specific interest is the -o options. Can LP Plus/OM Plus translate the -o options argument seamlessly?

A: LP Plus/OM Plus handles –o parameters the same as native Unix lp. Although –o parameters are not set by default, we do provide a whole host of –o parameters for customer use.  In addition, if we do not have a specific –o configured, it can be added quite easily. If the customer’s application uses the lp command line of UNIX to print documents, then by linking LP Plus/OM Plus to the UNIX lp, we can then route those jobs seamlessly through to the printers.

Q: Can raw text be sent without being modified or stripped out by LP Plus, (eg escape sequences in the print that need to be delivered out raw for barcodes etc.)?

A: LP/OM Plus does not convert/strip any data off of your reports.

Q: What happens when a print job goes into a printer with a different form then it had previously?

A: LP Plus/OM Plus will hold a job until the proper form is mounted, then it will begin to print. If the proper form is already set, the job is printed automatically.

Q: Can you confirm that maintenance can be done on print queues without taking down the scheduler?

A: The scheduler does NOT need to come down in order to work with print queues.  This is because our printer admin program notifies the scheduler of printer configuration changes on the fly.

Q: What additional resources are used once LP Plus/OM Plus is loaded? Does it load the system in any form? Note that this application will be running on a HP N class server with 6 x 550 Mhz CPU and 6 GB memory.

A: The program was designed to be very efficient and to use minimal resources. Typically, we use less than 18 MB of disk and make use of shared memory. When the product is not in use it will sit idle leaving system resources available to other processes.  However, if the customer would like to run our optional GUI interface, the system it is loaded on must have JRE 1.2 or better and should have (not required) 128 MB RAM for optimal performance.

Q: Does Plus Technologies have any customers that use LP Plus with HP DTC connected printers?

A: Yes, we do have several customers currently using HP DTC’s.

Q: Does OM/LP Plus integrate with Enterprise Management Tools such as HP Openview for centralized management?

A: In our implementation, we run as a standalone product and do not communicate directly with Openview, however, should this be a requirement, we utilize a third party software package to bridge the gap between the two, seamlessly allowing the passing of system alerts, etc.

Q: Can you define what extra features OM Plus will give me?

A: Major enhancements include: - System wide view vs. single server at a time view    - SAP certification Scalability (tested to over 3500 printers on a single server)            Seamlessly delivered to fax, email, and web servers Improvements to user interface to make operations more productive

Q: My Solaris system will hang during the boot time when it tries to start OM/LP Plus scheduler. When it hangs, I have to do CNTL+D to continue with the boot process.  What is wrong with my OM/LP Plus?

A: This happens because an application of yours is trying to STDIN to lp before OM/LP Plus comes up. You need to find out what application is doing it to resolve this problem. For a temporary fix, you can do either of following. unlink dcclp with lp before rebooting your system. That way dcclp will not hang your boot up process Go to your system defaults and put an invalid printer for your default printer.  This way if some application tries to STDIN to OM/LP Plus before OM/LP Plus scheduler comes up, it will pass the job to lp and let it fail.

Q: Does OM Plus create a copy of the data spooled?

A: When a job come into OM Plus it is in Spool status. At that point we write a copy of the print stream to the /reports directory as well as page count info to the /index directory and job information to the /queues directory.  The files will be named for the RIDxxxx number. If there is not enough room to spool, then OM Plus will spool until there is no more space and then generate an error.

Q: How are jobs archived in the OM Plus Archive system?

A: When the files are written to the archive, they are written to directories that are named by date and the files are named via a serial. In each date directory there is a reports dir and a queues dir. Each data file in the reports dir also has an accompanying file in the queues dir that has all of the job information about that file (username, pages, RID, copies, etc).   Because the RID files repeat we can’t use RID as a naming convention.

Q: What is the process to follow to help with errors in OM Plus?

A: First and foremost, look in the log. $LPHOME/messages/log. Find the messages that are associated with the RID in question.  There will be several messages.  For each message there is a message number that follows the following format, LP[PD]###[IWE] Message numbers that end in an ‘E’ are errors and are almost always the telling messages.  The message tells what part of the process broke down.  Included with the message is an errno=# where # is the error number that occurred.  The errno is the ‘why’.  You can look up a message or an errno from the request stats screen or in dccadin-system messages. The errno can also be looked up in /usr/include/sys/errno.h on a UNIX/LINUX system Here are common error codes that are not system specific Errno 2   File does not exist. Errno 4   Interrupted System call (Timeout) Errno 13 Permission Denied Errno 22 Invalid Parameter (Most likely an out of space on the file system problem) Errno 28 No Space Left on Device (Same as 22)

Q: Will OM Plus work in a Clustering Environment?

A: OM Plus is currently working on many system OS and release type failover environments (Windows Clustering, HP Service Guard, etc). The recommended environment is two clustered servers with OM Plus installed on a shared disk array. When one server goes down, the second server will start its services and keep the spooling and despoiling running with no loss of print information.

Q: How can I filter or search the OM Plus Log File?

A: OM Plus for Windows comes with a log file search to tool (OMFilterLog.exe) that can be run in Windows mode with a visual interface or from a command console to search, filter and output excerpts of the OM Plus Log file.  The console mode can be used to script search scripts for troubleshooting and automated event response. (See the document: Instructions for using the OM Plus Log Filter.doc in the OM Plus Help Directory)