Here is an idea.....

Leave LP as a psuedo device that does not exist, always spooled, maybe just OPENQ.

Next, set up that other printer as class LP also, always spooled.

You now have two devices in class LP. The first one ready to print will take the spool file and print it.
If network printing drops offline you still have a spooled device ready to accept spoolfiles and ready
to allow jobs to log on (heaven forbid you don't have a spooled device ready to accept a $STDLIST,
that first job would grab the printer and all others behind it would just wait until it logged off).

Would this meet your needs?

Paul Courry


On Fri, 6 Oct 2000 17:14:10 -0700, Donna Garverick wrote:

>hi all :-)
>
>i'm getting very close to moving our mpe developers off
>their old system onto a new, larger box.  on the old box,
>'lp' is actually (oh the shame!) a hpib-attached printer
>that's soon to be retired.  on the new box, 'lp' is only
>configured -- to an mythical address.  the outfence is set
>to 14 for lp so nothing will print.
>
>while i've been setting up the new box, having 'lp'
>configured this way was fine.  for some strange reason, the
>programmers seem to think that printing is important (:-)
>and need a 'better' solution.
>
>one solution that was suggested is to configure 'lp' as a
>network device (it would actually be 'pointed' to one of our
>linejet printers).  that makes me nervous....  having lived
>thru 'oh look, network printing crashed the system --
>again!', i'm not real keen on having lp be a network
>device.  i suppose, though, if properly handled (like
>throwing in a well-placed 'spooler;openq' and coupling the
>outfence for lp with the start/stopnet procedures) it might
>actually work.
>
>so....i wondering -- is anyone else doing this?  is there
>something really bad i'm overlooking?  does anyone else have
>some good suggestions?          - d
>
>--
>Donna Garverick     Sr. System Programmer
>925-210-6631        [log in to unmask]
>
>"Unix _is_ user friendly.
>It's just very selective about who its friends are.
>And sometimes even best friends have fights."
>
>>>>MY opinions, not Longs Drug Stores'<<<