NPGate - Help Index

Overview

Installation

Commands

Troubleshooting


NPGate - Overview

With NPGate NetWare clients are able to access the printing system of Windows NT. Print jobs from NetWare clients to NetWare print servers wille be retrieved by NPGate and delivered to the printing system of Windows NT.

The following chart shows the schematic flow of print jobs:

Features

- Sharing of Windows NT printers on NetWare networks

- Use of print devices on networks accessible through Windows NT (WfW, ... )

- Maximum of 512 concurrent NetWare print server connections

- Maximum of 512 concurrent NetWare printer connections (If you need more, call us!)

- Quick-Start feature

- Intelligent job control

- Automatic connection recovery

- No user connections to NetWare file servers necessary

- Supports security features

- Only NWLink required

- Easy installation and configuration

- Easy to use

- Multithreaded application

Limitations of the demo version

- This demo program will automatically terminate after two hours

- The printer defininitions can't be saved

- The available help shows only a part of the final version

For more information

Company: SOFTWARE SYSTEMS

         C. HABERL

Street : Galgenbergstrasse 9

City   : 93053 Regensburg

Country: Germany

Phone  : +49-941-709347

Fax    : +49-941-760148

CompuServe: 100066,52

NPGate for Windows NT

Versions

NPGate V1.0, x86, English language

NPGate V1.0, x86, German language

The latest order and price information is available through CompuServe. Please send a message to C. HABERL (100066,52) and write "NPGate information" into the subject field of your message. For a limited period of time there will be a special low-price offer!

We are looking for resellers in all countries!

Copyrights and Trademarks

Microsoft is a registered trademark and Windows NT is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Novell and NetWare are registered trademarks of Novell Inc.


NPGate - Installation

1. Installing NPGate

1	Log in as Administrator.

2	NWLink must be installed and activated on the local Windows NT workstation.

3	Copy the files NPGATE.EXE and NPGATE.HLP into a directory on your local machine.

4	Start NPGate.

5	Ready! Now you can configure the gateway.

First Check:

Use the function Add... in the Printer menu for the first checks: The Print Server box should show you a list of one ore more available print servers.

2. Configuring the Gateway

The next chart shows the relationship between Windows NT, Novell NetWare and NPGate:

The chaining of the two worlds can be done with the following steps:

1	NetWare configuration

2	NPGate configuration

2.1. NetWare Configuration

NPGate needs only a few settings on a NetWare print server. First of all you need to create a special interface on the NetWare print server. Take PCONSOLE, which is part of NetWare, and define a new printer on the prefered print server. The printer you define must be of the type "Remote Parallel", "Remote Serial"  or "Remote Other/Unknown". The hardware settings for these remote printers take no effect on NPGate operations. The only usable setting for NPGate will be the value of Buffer Size defined with PCONSOLE (Push it to the maximum).

Attention: Don't forget to assign one or more print queues. More interfaces can be installed, if you repeat the above steps. After NetWare configuration is done, restart your print server(s)!

2.2 NPGate Configuration

With NPGate, you can establish a connection between a logical printer from Windows NT and a remote printer definition from NetWare. You can use the function Add... from the Printer menu to do this. The appearing dialog box gives you the opportunity to define the connection. If you leave the box with OK, NPGate tries to start the connection. The message "Starting up" will be displayed for the current entry. After a few moments the message should change to "Running", which indicates a successful connection establishment. The current connection is now ready to service print jobs.

Startup failures are indicated by "Starting up" and followed by "Down" in the status column and if you click on the current entry, the status bar of the main window will show you an error message. The section Troubleshooting helps you to analyse and solve this problems.

Repeat this steps until you have defined all of your connections.

At the end of your work the current definitions can be saved with the function Save from the Gateway menu or will be automatically saved at program exit. (This feature is only available in the original version)


NPGate - Commands

Gateway Menu

Save

Exit

Printer Menu

Add..

Modify

Remove

Start/Stop

Pause/Continue

Options Menu

Settings

Help Menu

Index

About


NPGate - Troubleshooting

Errors after starting NPGate

ERROR MESSAGE

- POSSIBLE CAUSE

Could not open STREAMS!

- NWLink is not installed.

Could not start BROWSER!

- NWLink is not installed or disabled

Could not init BROWSER!

- NWLink is disabled

Could not open socket for BROWSER!

- BROWSER is using Listen Mode and the defined address is in exclusive use by another application.

Errors after Connection Activation

If you select the entry which failed, one of the following error messages will be diplayed in the status bar of the main window.

ERROR MESSAGE

- POSSIBLE CAUSE

Could not connect to print server!

- The print server is down.

Could not find printer information!

- The defined NetWare printer is used by another application.
- The defined NetWare printer is deleted or renamed.

Could not retrieve printer information!

- The defined NetWare printer is deleted or renamed.

Could not connect!

- The defined NetWare printer is used by another application.

- The defined NetWare printer is deleted or renamed.

Print server not found!

- The print server is down.

Could not open printer!

- The defined Windows NT printer does not exist.
- No rights to access the defined Windows NT printer.

Connection error!

- SPX connection error

Print Problems

NPGate does not place print jobs into the Windows NT printer spooler:

- The current user has not enough rights to place print jobs into the queue.

- The printer assignment of NPGate is not valid.

The printer is printing garbage:

- Check the printer settings under  Windows NT. The default data type should be RAW !

- Check the printer settings under Windows NT. The print processor may be wrong! It should be WINPRINT. On Advanced Server: If you use the Postscript emulation, check for SFMPSPRT as the print processor and for the data type PSCRPT1.

Connection Problems

NPGate uses NWLink to connect to NetWare. Be shure, you have installed NWLink Transport. You can use the Control Panel of Windows NT for checking and installing NWLink.


Save (Gateway Menu)

Saves all settings, including connection definitions and column widths.

Security: You must be a member of the group Administrators or Powerusers to perfom this function.


Exit (Gateway Menu)

Ends NPGate. The function Exit tries to end all print jobs during the Down Timout period. If there are active jobs after this period, NPGate will cancel these jobs.


Add... (Printer Menu)

Creates a new printer connection. The following must be defined:

Logical Printer	: The name of an installed Windows NT printer

Print Server	: The name of a NetWare print server

Network Printer	: The name of a network printer on the print server

Security: You must be a member of the group Administrators or Powerusers to perfom this function.


Remove (Printer Menu)

Removes the current printer connection. The current connection must have the status "Down" or "Stopped".

Security: You must be a member of the group Administrators or Powerusers to perfom this function.


Modify (Printer Menu)

Modifies the current printer connection. The current connection must have the status "Down" or "Stopped".

Security: You must be a member of the group Administrators or Powerusers to perfom this function.


Start/Stop (Printer Menu)

Starts and Stops the current entry.

After starting a connection, the state "Running" will be displayed. If an error occured, the display changes back to "Down".

The function Stop waits on the end of the current print job and breaks the print server connection. The state "Stopped" will be displayed. Stopped connections cannot be reestablished through the automatic Connection Recovery.


Pause/Continue (Printer Menu)

Pauses and continues a print job. Only connections with the state "Running" can be paused.


Settings (Options Menu)

End of Job Detection

If no more printing data is available for the current print job, NPGate will generate End of Jobs automatically. The given value tells NPGate how long it should wait before generating an End of Job. This waiting period will only take effect, if the current job is the only one in the NetWare print queue. The intelligent job control will be used in the other case.

Print Server Search Mode

This setting tells NPGate how to search for available NetWare print servers. If you select the Listen Mode, NPGate listens on the local network for print server information packets.

In Broadcast Mode, NPGate will send requests in regular intervals, given through Broadcast Period.

Search Mode changes will be only used after the next start of NPGate.

Connection Recovery

After selecting Connection Recovery, NPGate will reestablish broken connections to NetWare print servers. The Waiting Period sets the interval between each restart. This value should be breater than 30 seconds. The Retries value gives the count of retries NPGate should use before giving up. A successful restart resets the internal retry counter to zero.

Save Configuration

Selecting Save Congfiguration tells NPGate to save all internal parameters and printer definitions before the user leaves NPGate.

Autostart

Autostart activates the quick start feature of NPGate. After starting NPGate all saved connections are immediately established.

Add... with Activation

Checking this item will automatically start a new connection every time you add a new connection definition.

Down Timeout

This setting tells NPGate how long it should wait on the end of print jobs until killing the jobs. If you leave NPGate, Down Timeout will be used. You can also use the value -1 to wait forever on the end of all print jobs.

Security: You must be a member of the group Administrators or Powerusers to perfom this function.


Index (Help Menu)

Calls help.


About (Help Menu)

Shows version and developer information.