Gateways allow Novell® Distributed Print ServicesTM (NDPS®) clients to send jobs to printers that are not NDPS-aware (that is, printers that are not equipped with embedded NDPS Printer Agents). You select and configure a printer gateway when you create a new Printer Agent.
Gateways translate NDPS queries or commands to printer-specific language that the physical printer can use. This is possible because gateways are configured to know the specific type (make and model) of printer being used.
The following diagram illustrates a typical gateway configuration.
Third-party gateways are developed by printer manufacturers to support printers directly attached to the network. Because they are developed to interact with specific proprietary printers, can provide a wider array of information and offer options that are not available for the generic Novell gateway. Some third-party gateways provide utilities that can be configured to automatically create Printer Agents when one of their printers is attached to the network.
The Novell gateway supports most printers and provides support for other print systems. The gateway supports LPR/LPD printing and IPP printing. LPR is a UNIX-based printing protocol used by network-attached printers in TCP/IP environments to service jobs submitted to print queues.