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Physics Computing Desktop Computing
- Zephyr, a Wind of Change
- 15 Years Novell at CERN and the Phase-out of NICE95-NT4
- Upgrade of the Printer Service Servers
- End-of-Life for CERN Linux 6.1.1 and 7.2.1
- Restrictions on Running KaZaA and Similar Peer-to-Peer (P2P) File-Sharing Applications at CERN
- New Improved SPAM Fight Available on CERN Mail Service
- New CENTRAL CVS Service at CERN
- Change of Procedures for CAE Cluster
- Latest News from Software Development Tools Service
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Upgrade of the Printer Service Servers
Samuel Lown , IT/PS
During the last few months work has been done on replacing the servers print1, print2 and print3 which are now beginning to show their age. The new servers, print4 through to print7, are considerably faster and run the latest stable version of the CERN RedHat Linux distribution.
Currently around 33% of all the printers at CERN are running on the new servers, leaving around 800 printers on the old servers. The migration is continuing at a steady rate and we would expect all the printers to have been ported within the next two months. Most printers work seamlessly on the new servers and can be moved very easily. However, there are many special cases that require more testing and hence a longer migration period.
Other than the improvements listed below, the change over is transparent to the end user. All current versions of Printer Wizard and xprint work with the new system without change.
Some of the key changes to the system, other than specific hardware and software changes, are as follows:
Improved Management System for the Printer Support Team
A Web interface system allows administrators to quickly add and update printer configurations. Changes are then automatically performed on each of the running servers using the data obtained directly from the database servers. Facilities for status monitoring and accounting are also supplied, hopefully minimising the time required to solve problems related to queueing and printers.Accounting Improved
Accounting details are stored for each job sent to the servers. Details include: user name, host name, data size, pages, job name, and date. Data is expected to be stored for several months and collated to generate printer usage reports. The report generation is still under development, however job data is already being recorded. It should also be noted that accounting is based on printer hardware counters and is not always available for every printer.Improved Filters
The latest versions of the printer communications programs are used that provide more accurate accounting and additional tray support for new printers.ASCII to PostScript Conversion Filters Replaced
The new version of the 'a2ps' program for converting text documents to PostScript pages has been included in the system. A lot of effort was spent to replace the old and now unsupported text conversion utilities to provide a near transparent replacement. The new converter has improved font support (including support for accents) and properly supports A4 paper. All the original form codes and 'xprint' formatting options are supported, including support for FORTRAN layout codes.For more detailed information and presentations on the evolution of the print service please visit our web pages at http://cern.ch/product-support/UI/Docs/PrintService/ These pages are still under construction.
Also, please do not hesitate to contact the print service team directly or by sending mail to Printer.Support@cern.ch should there be any faults, suggestions, or for further information.