10.5. Printer services

PC/NFS lets you access a printer attached to a Unix host by redirecting printer output to a file on the PC/NFS print host. It's up to the server to spool the file to the printer, using the standard Unix lpr or lp mechanism. There's no requirement that the Unix printer be directly attached to the print host; if the server has to print remotely, it does so transparently to the PC/NFS client.

The PC/NFS print and authentication functions are performed by the same machine: both services are handled by the PCNFSD daemon that runs on the authentication server. You may choose to run PCNFSD daemons on several NFS servers to separate the authentication and printing services. PC/NFS clients will send requests to PCNFSD daemons used for printing if the PC printer definitions explicitly name the print host.

Note that some PC/NFS implementations support printing via the LPR protocol, thus obviating the need to run the PCNFSD daemon if it is not needed for authentication and permissions checking purposes.

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