IPP> IBM Midrange (System i - iSeries - AS/400) IPP Driver Attributes

From: Paul Tykodi (ptykodi@tykodi.com)
Date: Wed Apr 16 2008 - 15:16:56 EDT

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    Hi,

    The following information about the IPP System Driver program from the IBM
    Midrange platform has been contributed by Terry Luebbe of IBM in support of
    the ippv2 process.

    Terry S. Luebbe
    iSeries Printer Attachment & Host Print Transform
    Dept GJCA
    Rochester, MN

    <Start IBM Info>

    IPP Operations:
    ---------------
    The iSeries IPP print driver uses the following IPP Operations:

    1. Get-Printer-Attributes
    2. Validate-Job
    3. Print-Job

    It is possible, that in the future, we may decide to also use:

    4. Get-Job-Attributes

    NOTE: The iSeries IPP print driver uses HTTP/1.1 chunking during the
    IPP Print-Job operation.

    For each iSeries spooled file, the IPP print driver uses the
    Get-Printer-Attributes operation to check
    the printer status, the Validate-Job operation to make sure the printer will
    accept the spooled
    file print data, and finally the Print-Job operation to send the spooled
    file print data.

    The iSeries print driver opens and closes the socket for each IPP operation.
    For each spooled file
    three (3) socket connections are opened and closed. We recommend that our
    customers use IP port
    631, but we would also support IP port 80 as specified in the IPP/1.0
    specification. We do not make the
    customer use IP port 631 as IPP/1.1 would suggest.

    IPP Get-Printer-Attributes:
    ---------------------------

    The iSeries IPP print driver uses the following IPP attributes that can be
    sent back from the device.

    For each iSeries spooled file, a Get-Printer-Attributes operation is sent to
    retrieve the printer attributes.

    The iSeries IPP print drivers uses:

    1. printer-state
    2. printer-state-reasons
    3. printer-is-accepting-jobs

    to determine if the device is ready to accept spooled files from the
    iSeries.

    Since printer-state and printer-is-accepting-jobs are both REQUIRED IPP
    attributes, the iSeries IPP print driver will end processing
    if these attributes are missing from the device's Get-Printer-Attributes
    response.

    If printer-state = "stopped" the iSeries IPP print driver will look at the
    printer-state-reasons and determine what iSeries
    message to send to the operator of the device. The iSeries has messages for
    most of the printer-state-reasons, for example,
    "media-needed", "media-jam", "toner-low", "toner-empty", "cover-open",
    "door-open", "input-tray-missing", and "output-tray-missing"
    are all supported. If required, we can add additional messages for new
    versions of OS400, the iSeries operating system.

    If the device does not implement printer-state-reasons, or only provides a
    limited set of values like "none" or "other" it becomes
    very difficult for the iSeries IPP print driver to determine what may be
    wrong at the device.

    If the printer-state is "idle" or "processing" and the
    printer-is-accepting-jobs=TRUE, then the iSeries IPP print driver will
    send the spooled file using the IPP Print-Job operation.

    The IPP Print-Job response's, status-message, is used to determine if the
    spooled file was accepted by the device. If the status-message is
    successful, the iSeries IPP print driver will indicate to the iSeries print
    subsystem that the spooled file has successfully completed.

    Once the device accepts the Print-Job operation without a status-message
    indicating an error, the iSeries assumes the print job
    has completed. The iSeries IPP print driver does not use Get-Job-Attributes
    to determine if the device has actually completed
    the print job.

    IPP Job Template attributes:
    ----------------------------
    IPP Job Template attributes describe job processing behavior. Support for
    Job Template attributes by a printer is OPTIONAL.

    The iSeries IPP print driver currently uses the following IPP Job Template
    attributes:

    1. "job-priority"
    2. "finishings"
    3. "sides"
    4. "number-up"

    Of these four (4) Job Template attributes "finishings" and "number-up" are
    most important to implement. Supporting "finishings" and
    "number-up" would add significant customer value to network printers.
    Currently only the IPDS network printers support these functions
    on the iSeries.

    On the iSeries, the "sides" attribute at the job level will be overridden
    within the printer data stream.

    In the future the iSeries print driver may support the following IPP Job
    Template attributes:

    1. "job-hold-until"
    2. "job-sheets"
    3. "orientation-requested"
    4. "media"
    5. "printer-resolution"
    6. "print-quality"

    These attributes were not implemented because the iSeries does not have
    "printer-resolution" or "media" type attributes and support for
    "job-sheets", "orientation-requested", and "print-quality" are handled
    within the printer data streams generated by the iSeries.

    Finally, it is not likely that the IPP print driver will ever use the
    following IPP Job Template attributes:

    1. "multiple-document-handling"
    2. "copies"
    3. "page-ranges"

    The iSeries print subsystem does not support multiple documents contained
    within a single spooled file. The IPP print driver itself handles
    the processing of "copies" and "page-ranges".

    <End IBM Info>

    Separately I will e-mail a summary of the information page from the IBM web
    site listing total number of models of laser printers, inkjet printers,
    impact printers, and thermal printers, which are known to be compatible,
    incompatible, or undetermined compatibility with the IPP Driver outlined
    above.

    I hope this information will be useful to the ippv2 effort.

    Best Regards,

    /Paul

    --
    Paul Tykodi
    Principal Consultant
    TCS - Tykodi Consulting Services LLC
    

    Tel/Fax: 603-343-1820 Mobile: 603-866-0712 E-mail: ptykodi@tykodi.com WWW: http://www.tykodi.com



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