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Understanding the network.pdf - Back to Home

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Printer Access Pro<strong>to</strong>col<br />

Printer Access Pro<strong>to</strong>col (PAP) is used for client/server <strong>to</strong> printer<br />

communication. It performs connection setup and tear down, as well<br />

as data transfer. ATP is used as <strong>the</strong> transport pro<strong>to</strong>col and NBP (like<br />

ASP) is used for service (socket) addressing.<br />

PAP transactions are time-based, as ATP is used as <strong>the</strong> transport<br />

mechanism. PAP will maintain half-open connections for <strong>the</strong> duration<br />

of <strong>the</strong> timeout. After a connection expires, <strong>the</strong> session is terminated.<br />

Because AppleTalk printing is a device direct activity, PAP provides for<br />

a keepalive facility. Tickle packets are sent periodically from <strong>the</strong><br />

clients with open sessions <strong>to</strong> maintain <strong>the</strong> connection and ensure that<br />

<strong>the</strong> printer is online and processing requests.<br />

Presentation Layer Pro<strong>to</strong>cols<br />

AppleTalk uses two pro<strong>to</strong>cols, AppleTalk Filing Pro<strong>to</strong>col (AFP) and<br />

PostScript, for translating data responses (lower layer pro<strong>to</strong>col) and<br />

requests (application layer) in<strong>to</strong> a common data encoding language.<br />

AFP is used for client remote file access. AFP is a command transla<strong>to</strong>r<br />

that takes native file system calls and translates <strong>the</strong>m in<strong>to</strong> AFP calls<br />

that <strong>the</strong> server understands. PostScript is a stack-based<br />

page-description language used by printers and applications <strong>to</strong><br />

ma<strong>the</strong>matically describe objects. Apple QuickDraw is <strong>the</strong> native<br />

page-description language used <strong>to</strong> display Macin<strong>to</strong>sh characters and<br />

graphics and is also used for printing <strong>to</strong> low resolution printers.<br />

QuickDraw acts as an operating system level transla<strong>to</strong>r for data<br />

images <strong>to</strong> PostScript. PostScript is used <strong>to</strong> communicate with <strong>the</strong><br />

printer hardware <strong>to</strong> render <strong>the</strong> image for printing. Most common<br />

printing errors are related <strong>to</strong> corrupted QuickDraw-<strong>to</strong>-PostScript<br />

translations.<br />

IPX and NetBIOS<br />

Once upon a time, <strong>the</strong>re was no such thing as Windows NT (and <strong>the</strong> world was a nice<br />

place for UNIX system administra<strong>to</strong>rs). Novell NetWare and Inter<strong>network</strong>ing<br />

Exchange Pro<strong>to</strong>col (IPX) ran on 60 <strong>to</strong> 70 percent of all <strong>network</strong>ed Intel/DOS-based<br />

computers. Novell is a proprietary 100 percent DOS-compatible <strong>network</strong> operating<br />

system (NOS). Its basic design goal was <strong>to</strong> provide shared file system and printer<br />

access transparently <strong>to</strong> desk<strong>to</strong>p PCs through <strong>the</strong> I/O interfaces provided by DOS.

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