[WinMac] Re: DHCP - Printing

Dan Schwartz(expresso[at]snip.net)
Sat, 23 Jan 1999 22:15:50 -0500

        Dear Alex,

        It's bad practice to "nail" an IP address in a DHCP environment, because
if you take the device offline and the address lease expires, and then you
bring the device back online you'll have two devices with the same IP
address... And all hell breaks loose.

        With NT, you get all sorts of error messages. With Open Transport, your
Mac will freeze up. [Been there, done that.]

        The reason I bring this *major* point up is if you are on a LAN with a
small subnet: Not everyone has the luxury of a Class C (255.255.255.0)
subnet. With CIDR (Classless ID Resolution) you are only assigned the IP
address' you actually need. I've run into a situation where NAT (Network
Address Translation) is not used, and I only have access to a 32 address
(255.255.255.224) subnet... And warning messages are appearing in the Event
Viewer that I am down to 3 free address' for this particular LAN.

        See where it can be dangerous to "nail" an IP address? I had to do this
with two H-P LaserJet PostScript printers with JetDirect MIO cards,
assigning the last address' at the "top" of the subnet. But again, this can
be dangerous if the printers go offline.

        Cheers!
        Dan

At 08:23 PM 1/23/99 -0500, Alex replied to me, then near the bottom replied
to (?):
>> I
>>even tried a no-no: "Nailing" the IP address of the printer NIC in a LAN
>>served with a DHCP server. This was disappointing for me: An NT4/SP4
>>service failing to even partially work.
>
>Why do you say no-no? Is it ill-advised to exclude IP addresses in a DHCP
>environment (I assume that by "Nailing" that is what you mean). There are
>a lot of printers out there that do not support DHCP and you have to
>exclude their addresses and make them static.
>
>This is good to point out for people on DHCP environments that might have
>problems printing TCP/IP.
>
>Also, a well-known fix for stalled printing from an NT server is to start
>and stop the spooler services.
>
>We work with a lot of TCP/IP printers set up on NT and must say it's
>quite reliable. Sometimes NICs misbehave and sometimes you have to stop
>and start the spooler (as mentioned above); or you might find yourself
>changing the location of the spool queue because you're running out of
>hard drive space (due to bad planning of course), but all in all it's a
>good solution. One thing to be very careful with is the device name. If
>not enterred correctly (for devices that offer LPD services, like Fiery,
>Cyclone, etc RIPS) you will never print, get all sorts of errors and
>scratch your head.
>
>And of course, there's always the device's manual for LP/LPR services
>entries. But who's got time toread manuals right ;)
>
>Alex Dearden
>pata@doglover.com

>>This series of printers is fairly notorious for difficult printing. I
>>understand the PC software is usually worse than the Mac, but I have used
>>the Mac and it is pretty bad. I have a Stylus 600, but the troubles go
>>all the way through the series.
>
>I've got a Stylus 850 and haven't had too many problems with it on my
>Macs...??? One thing I make sure I do is get rid of desktop printing
>(alhtough my device does not have Appletalk in it, I've seen it cause all
>sorts of weird and mysterious things).
>
>What sort of problems are you having?
>
>BTW I agrre about the output, simply amazing.
>
>Alex Dearden
>pata@doglover.com
>

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