Subject: Re: printing and .profile problems

From: Mke Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 09:13:54 -0700

At 11:19 PM 8/6/96 -0700, you wrote:
>
>Hi, I hope I'm doing this right. I tried to post to the linux.debian.user
>newsgroup without success.
>
>Anyway, I just installed Debian 1.1.2 in late July (my first Debian
>installation), with a few problems. I've fixed some of them thanks to this
>forum, but there are two among the many left that I'm trying to fix right now.
>
>1. dselect didn't configure lpr correctly so I did it myself using the
>printing HOWTO which I've done successfully many times before with Slackware
>releases. Now root can print but users get the message, "usr can't create
>/usr/spool/lpd/hp4p/.seq". This is with the permissions on that file set to
>rw_rw_r as the HOWTO says. I tried changing the permissions to rw_rw_rw but
>then a user gets the message "usr can't create
>/usr/spool/lpd/hp4p/tfA006Aa01777". As far as I know I have the permissions
>set correctly in all the directories leading to this file, but this seems
>like a permission problem. I'm stuck!
        Try this.... 
chmod 777 /usr/spool/lpd/hp4p/
         and then 
chmod u+t /usr/spool/lpd/hp4p/

                It sounds to me like lpr needs this area as a scratch pad
before printing.  Chmod u+t sets the sticky bit, which allows users to erase
only files they create.  This should clear up your problem, and if some Unix
guru out there noticed my syntax was wrong please point out to the world so
I don't make the same mistake myself ;>.

                                                Mike...

>Thanks in advance for any help.
>
>Chris Beamis
        np

---

From: [email-masked] (chris beamis)
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 1996 09:10:02 -0700

At 05:49 PM 8/7/96 -0400, Susan G. Kleinmann wrote:
>
>Hi Chris --
>
>You said:
>> I tried to post to the linux.debian.user newsgroup without success.
>There isn't any newsgroup -- just this mailing list.
>

There is a group called linux.debian.user that I can access with my
News Xpress program operating under Win3.1. I just checked to be sure
and all the messages in this thread were there. Is it just a mirror
of this mail group and not a real newsgroup?

>I'm not sure what you mean that dselect didn't set up the printer 
>"correctly", in this sense:  the various files and directories for 
>lpr and lpd can be configured in any one of several ways,
>using a variety of approaches.  The HOWTO's refer to Linux in general, and
>not to the Debian distribution in particular.  Debian uses these 
>permissions for directories in /usr/spool/lpd:
>
>drwxrwsr-x   2 root     lp           1024 Jul 27 14:20 lp1/
>drwxrwsr-x   2 root     lp           1024 Aug  7 16:15 lp2/
>
>where lp1 and lp2 correspond to 2 different stanzas in /etc/printcap.
>
>User 'lp' is defined this way in /etc/passwd:
>lp:*:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/bin/sh
>
>and group 'lp is defined this way in /etc/group:
>lp:*:7:lp
>
>If you've changed many of those things, you might want to try the
>settings above and see if they work.
>
>Good luck,
>Susan Kleinmann
>

What I meant when I said that lpr didn't work was simply that when
I tried using it nothing came out of the printer. I didn't try to
diagnose it, I just set up the way I always have in the past.
I'm preparing to try these hints plus all the others I've received
and will report back.

Thanks

Chris Beamis

---

From: [email-masked] (chris beamis)
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 1996 09:53:34 -0700

Success!

Thanks to everyone's copious outpouring of hints and advice, I easily fixed
both my .profile and my printing problems.

1. I'm using bash and sure enough both the .bash_profile and .bashrc files
were sitting right there in the user's home directory waiting to be noticed.
I'm guessing that Slackware must not install those files there which is why
I didn't have this problem previously.

2. I fixed the problem of the user not being able to print by fixing
ownerships and permissions, namely:

  rwxrwsr_x   root   lp     /usr/spool/lpd/hp4p

and changed the five files, /usr/spool/lpd/hp4p/.seq, /errs, /input_filter,
/lock and /status to ownership root.lp. (Under Slackware these ownerships
were root.daemon).

Thanks again for all the help.
Warning, I hope everyone realizes now that I will return with many more
problems now that these two are fixed. But not now, got to go to work.

Chris Beamis