[CentOS] CUPS job handling

[Jon LaBadie]

On Sun, Sep 01, 2019 at 02:19:58PM +0200, hw wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Aug 2019 11:48:37 -0500 (CDT)
> Michael Hennebry <hennebry at web.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 20 Aug 2019, hw wrote:
> > 
> > > is it somehow possible to make CUPS automatically redirect jobs, and
> > > following jobs, away from printers which can not print them to other
> > > printers that can print them until the printers that couldn't print
> > > them are again able to print them?
> > 
> > IIRC CUPS has printer classes or some such thing.
> > A user can send a job to a class and CUPS will
> > direct it within that class as it sees fit.
> > Presumaly if one printer is stil chewing on last week's job,
> > CUPS will see fit to direct subsequent jobs elsewhere.
> 
> Well, yes, and I am not sure (at least not yet) if print jobs for a
> class are diverted to other members of the class or not.  It seems
> that data kept in the printer buffer and in the print-server the
> printers are connected to can make it difficult to figure what is
> actually going on.
> 
With the widespread use of deskside printers today, the use-case for
printer classes is moot.  Back when laser printers were expensive,
a department might purchase several of the same printer and put
them into a "printer room" along with "cubby holes" for each
department member.  So you might have printers enumerated hplj-1
to hplj-n and a printer class just hplj.  If you printed to hplj,
the first unused member of the class got your job.  But you could
still send to a specific printer by enumerated name.

Another seldom used feature is cover sheets (and end sheets).  They
separated users jobs so when you picked up your job directly from the
printer, you could file other completed jobs in their respective cubbies.

Jon
-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                 jon at jgcomp.com
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