THIS IS A VERY EARLY RELEASE OF A NETWORK PRINTING PROGRAM. WE HOPE TO HAVE A MUCH CLEANER AND ROBUST VERSION READY FOR RELEASE AT THE SPRING DECUS SYMPOSIUM. In other words, don't call us we'll call YOU!!!! The server end of the network printing system is called PRSERVERV1 and is contained in the [.PRSERVER] subdirectory. It is already compiled and linked for a Version 4.4 system. If you have to rebuild the server, use the BUILD.COM procedure. The PRSERVERV1.EXE program and the PRSERVERV1.COM command procedure will have to be installed at your site. You will need to create an account from which DECnet can execute these files. This account only needs NETWORK access since no human ever needs to log into it. This account also needs the following privileges: SYSNET to allow it to allocate the printer LOGIO and PHYSIO to allow it to do the proper I/O to a spooled device. SYSLCK to allow it to use the lock manager for sharing the printer NETPRV so it can talk to DECnet TMPMBX because it is there The MAXJOBS quota should probably be large or infinite (0) since each queue will start a separate network job. CPU limit should be infinite to keep your queues running forever. The default priority should be higher so the printers will not have to compete with anyone for for CPU resources. After you have created the account, copy both of the above files to the account's initial default directory. When a symbiont has activated the server, it's process will have a name of the form PR_node_nnnn where "node" is the name of the node from which data is being sent and "nnnn" is a number from 0000 to 9999. The [.Symbiont] directory contains source code and object code of the modified print symbiont. NOTE:: You must edit the file SYMBIONT.FOR and replace 'PRIVEDACCOUNT' with the name of the prived account you created as described above, and 'PASSWORD' with the password for that account. Execute the BUILD.COM command procedure to compile, link, and move the modified symbiont NETPRINTV1 to SYS$SYSTEM. If using our modified symbiont on a printer, all printing to that device must be done through the modified symbiont, DEC's cannot be used. The DEC symbiont does not know how to share the device, and will abort with a message stating that the device is already allocated. Note: DECnet is used for both local and remote printing. See example below. To enable remote printing, one must start the print queues with the new symbiont, and use the /ON qualifier to tell the symbiont where to send output to. A double bar '||' is used to seperate the node name of the node you wish to print to, and the device you are printing to. We wanted to use '::' , but DEC in it's infinite wisdom has chosen to preparse the command line before being passed to the symbiont. An example is provided below to show you how to start up remote printing. To allow Node1, Node2, and Node3 to print to Node3, do as follows: 1) Stop the print queues on all three nodes. 2) On Node3 : $ START/QUEUE/DEF=(FLAG=ALL)/ON=NODE3||LPA0: - _$ /PROC=NETPRINTV1 LPA0: 3) On Node2 : $ START/QUEUE/DEF=(FLAG=ALL)/ON=NODE3||LPA0: - _$ /PROC=NETPRINTV1 LPA0: 4) On Node1 : $ START/QUEUE/DEF=(FLAG=ALL)/ON=NODE3||LPA0: - _$ /PROC=NETPRINTV1 LPA0: NETPRINTV1 must reside in SYS$SYSTEM on all nodes. PRSERVERV1 needs to reside in the prived account setup for it on the system you are printing to. The FLAG=ALL qualifier is needed, because multiple files in the same job will be seperated if another node wishes to print. The fix for this is to check the entry number of the current job and compare it with the previous, and if equal don't tell PRSERVERV1 to deallocate the printer. Simple, but I did not have time to include it. When shutting down DECnet, be sure to shut down the queues of the remote nodes first, prior to shutting down the network. Unexpected things will happen if this is not done. IE Queue Manager will be stopped.