I have recently upgraded my cable modem. Actually my cable company did. The new setup is much faster and more reliable. It works great to surf. Prior to getting the new modem, I used to see the IP address that was assigned to me as part of my command line prompt (ie root@99-99-99-99). Now i get root@JOHNHOLC. I think that is my user Fullname. Surfing the web works fine, but if I try to start LPD or print anything, I get an invalid hostname error. I've never had this problem before. What should my hostname be? I have not been able to find the assigned IP addresses listed anywhere on my system. Can I put somehting in etc/hosts that will fix this? Why does LPD need my hostname? Any help would be greatly appreciated. JH

Hi ,

Are u using a remote printer or a local one ?

Regards,
Xanthium.

My printer is local.

Hi ,


Sorry but i really dont have any solution to suggest!
Ask one of the moderators ... meybe they can help .


Sorry.

Regards,
xanthium.

I think I have solved my problem with the help of some ideas I got from other posts here. I ran /sbin/ifconfig. I took the INET address listed under eth0 in the results and added a line in etc/hosts with that address and the hostname of JOHNHOLC. I no longer see an unknown host message flash when I bring up xwindows and printing works. Also LPD is started on boot-up as it should. I hope this works long term. I wonder if I will have to repeat this process, if my IP address to my ISP is changed through DHCP. We will see.

hi hbob ,

Well i could have suggested u the thing but the only problem is the just what u mentioned ... ie; if the IP change u will start getting the error again (ofcourse with little scripting u can get it working ).... i still cant figure out why u got the error for local printer !

can u post the contents of printcap file ?

Regards,
Xanthium

Below is the contents of my printcap. I have a Lexmark Z52 printer. The driver I use is downloaded from Lexmark. It has its own install program, which creates the 3 queue entries you see. I am not sure why they wanted to use all three.

##PRINTTOOL3## LOCAL
lexmarkz52:\
:sd=/var/spool/lpd/lexmarkz52:\
:mx#0:\
:sh:\
:lp=/dev/usb/lp0:\
:if=/usr/local/lexmark/z52/z52.sh:
##PRINTTOOL3## LOCAL
z52-outfiles:\
:sd=/var/spool/lpd/z52-outfiles:\
:mx#0:\
:sh:\
:lp=/dev/usb/lp0:
##PRINTTOOL3## LOCAL
lp:\
:sd=/var/spool/lpd/lp:\
:mx#0:\
:sh:\
:lp=/dev/usb/lp0:\
:if=/usr/local/lexmark/z52/z52.sh:

I am guessing that the reason I need a valid hostname to run lpd for printing is because lpd is a service.

if you set /etc/sysconfig/network HOSTNAME=yourname
should have your computername regardless of dhcp