Administrate the Printers¶

The printers in a PLOSSYS 5 system can be administrated via PLOSSYS CLI.

Hint - Web user interface

Some of the operations can be executed via PLOSSYS Administrator as well.

Requirements¶

For the requirements for using PLOSSYS CLI, refer to PLOSSYS CLI.

Options¶

Specific PLOSSYS 5 Server¶

For administrating the printers of a specific PLOSSYS 5 server, specify the --server <plossys_server> option. Default is https://localhost:8080.

plossys printer <command> --server https://<plossys_server>:8080

Example - show all printers of the plossys.server1.com server

plossys printer show --server https://plossys.server1.com:8080

Self-Signed Certificates¶

Specifying the --insecure option, you avoid that the certificate will be checked by the client.

plossys printer <command> --insecure

User Authentication¶

Depending on the type of user authentication activated for the seal-rest service, you have to specify the user and the password with PLOSSYS CLI. By default, the specified user is first checked via OpenID Connect and via basic authentication as fallback.

plossys printer <command> --auth <auth_type> --user <user> --pass <password>

Example - show all printers as user test authenticated via OpenID Connect

plossys printer show --auth oidc --user test --pass test

Using OpenID Connect, you can alternatively specify a JSON Web token (JWT) instead of a user and his password.

plossys printer <command> --auth oidc --bearer <jwt>

Example - show all printers as a user authenticated via JSON Web token

plossys printer show --auth oidc --bearer eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbG...

The credentials, that means user and password or the token, can also be contained in a credential file which is specified with PLOSSYS CLI.

plossys printer <command> --auth oidc --credential <credential_file>

Commands¶

Show All Printers¶

plossys printer show

Show Specific Printers¶

plossys printer show <printer_name_1> <printer_name_2> ... <printer_name_n>

Show Specific Fields for Printers¶

plossys printer show --fields <field_name>

Example - show the connection data

plossys printer show --fields "config/connection"

Pause Specific Printers¶

plossys printer pause <printer_name_1> <printer_name_2> ... <printer_name_n>

Resume Specific Printers¶

plossys printer resume <printer_name_1> <printer_name_2> ... <printer_name_n>

Delete Specific Printers¶

plossys printer remove <printer_name_1> <printer_name_2> ... <printer_name_n>

Redirect a Printer¶

plossys printer redirect <source_printer_name> <target_printer_name>

Set Printer Message¶

plossys printer set-message <printer> <message>

Remove Printer Message¶

plossys printer remove-message <printer> <message>

Export the Configuration of a Specific Printer¶

plossys printer export <printer_config_file>.yml <printer_name>

Example - minimum printer configuration

printer: hp4050
connection: 'socket://194.49.3.130:9100'
server: spooler1
webUrl: 'http://194.49.3.130'

Caution - file extension

The standard PLOSSYS 5 driver templates come with a printer configuration file in yml.in format. Files in yml.in format can be used for importing the printer configuration. They will be internally converted into yml format before being uploaded to PLOSSYS 5.

PLOSSYS CLI recognizes the format by the file extension. In case of the yml.in file extension, the file will be converted.

When exporting a printer configuration to a file, the file always has the yml format. An automatic conversion from yml into yml.in is impossible.

If you export a printer configuration in order to modify it and import it again afterwards, do not give the export file the file extension yml.in, as you might expect if you worked with a yml.in file from a driver template before. Otherwise, an erroneous conversion would take place when you re-import the modified file. In most cases, the import would still work without an error, but PLOSSYS 5 would send erroneous jobs to the printers.

For the printer configuration export, always use file names with the yml extension!

Import a Printer Configuration File¶

plossys printer import <printer_config_file>.yml

Caution - allowed characters

The printer name must not contain UTF-8 or apostrophes. Although the printer will be imported, jobs cannot be processed via this printer.

Hint - printer not deleted

New printers are added. Existent printer configurations are overwritten with the new configuration data. The printer configurations already stored in PLOSSYS 5 are not deleted.

Validate a Printer Configuration File¶

plossys printer validate <printer_config_file>.yml

Example - valid printer configuration file

plossys printer validate valid.yml

results in

+ Successfully validated configuration from valid.yml.

Example - invalid printer configuration

plossys printer validate invalid.yml

results in

! Syntax of config file invalid.yml is invalid.
! bad indentation of a mapping entry at line 16, column 6:
     - name: PJL Enter Language Posts ...

Hint - more options

For information about the additional options with validating a printer configuration file, execute:

plossys printer validate --help

Check Printer Connections¶

With the following command, you check one or more printer connections and send a test file to the printer optionally.

plossys printer check <connection_list> [--no-color] [--testfile <file_name>]

Connection List¶

The connection list contains printer names and/or printer connections, either specified on command line separated by blanks or read from stdin separated by newline if - has been specified.

The following syntax is possible for specifying the connection:

Name of the installed printer, for example, myPrinter1
Connection as server:port, for example, printer1:9100
URL providing the printer name, for example, printer://myPrinter1
URL providing the connection, for example socket://printer1:9100

Messages Without Color¶

The --no-color option disables the coloration of the messages output to stdout and stderr. For the coloration, control characters are used which could interfere with the automated evaluation of the messages.

Output a Test File¶

With specifying the --testfile <file_name> option, the file is sent to the printer in addition to checking the connection.

Examples¶

Example - specifying the connections in a file

printer.txt contains the following lines:

printer1
printer2
printer3

The command

cat printer.txt | plossys printer check - --no-color

checks the connections to the printer1, printer2 and printer3 printers. For example, the output could be

✓ printer1 Ok Ok
✗ printer2 HostnameNotFound Hostname not found.
✗ printer3 ErrorConnectToPort Cannot connect to port.

Example - specifying the connections on command line

plossys printer check printer1 printer2 printer3 --no-color

Return Codes¶

The printer check command returns on stderr one of the following codes for each check:

Return Code	Description
`ErrorConnectionMissing`	Neither printer name nor connection has been specified.
`ErrorConnectToHost`	Server cannot be reached.
`ErrorConnectToPort`	Server was found but no application is listening on the port.
`ErrorDns`	Error with DNS lookup
`ErrorInvalidUrl`	The specified URL is invalid.
`ErrorPortMissing`	The port has not been specified in the URL.
`ErrorPrinterNotFound`	The specified printer is not configured in the system.
`ErrorReadDatabase`	Server-side error when reading the database
`ErrorReadingStream`	Error when reading the test file
`ErrorSendingData`	General error when sending the test file to the printer
`ErrorWritingStream`	Error when writing the test file to the printer
`HostnameNotFound`	The server name could not be find by DNS lookup.

Advanced Printer Queries¶

For advanced printer queries, the query command is available. The query command supports the OData language. The result of the command is always a list of printers. In order to execute complex queries and operations, this list can be combined with other PLOSSYS CLI commands.

Example - list the active printers

plossys printer query "runtime/status eq 'active'"

Example - pause the active printers

plossys printer query "runtime/status eq 'active'" | plossys printer pause -

Example - show all printers whose names begin with odm

plossys printer query "startswith(_id,'odm')" | plossys printer show  -