DMX-100 92-2182-01 Rev.C

Internal and External LAN Interface Options Installation Instructions

Datamax InternationalHerbert House

12 Elizabeth Way, PinnaclesHarlow, Essex CM19 5FE UK

Phone: +44 1279 772200Fax: +44 1279 424448

Asia-Pacific19 Loyang Way

#01-01 CILC BuildingSingapore 508724

Phone: +65 542-2611Fax: +65 542-3611

Corporate Headquarters4501 Parkway Commerce Blvd.

Orlando, Fl 32808Phone: 407-578-8007

Fax: 407-578-8377

Printed U.S.A. Copyright 2002

1

Contents of the DMX100 LAN Interface Option Kits

This kit(s) contains the following items:

Internal (78-2345-01)

• Internal LAN Card Assy., p/n 24-2558-01 • Rear Cover Plate; p/n 11-5206-01 • (4) M4 x 12 Screws, p/n 10-2903-04 External (78-2278-01)

• External LAN Module., p/n 78-2278-01

Tools Required The Internal LAN Interface Option only requires a #2 Philips screwdriver for installation. The External LAN Interface Option does not require any tools for installation.

Preparing the Printer (Internal LAN Interface Option Only)

� Turn the power OFF and disconnect the AC

Power Cord.

� Refer to the diagram at the right. At the rear of the printer, remove the two screws and the blank cover plate.

2

Installing the Internal LAN Interface Option � Slide the Internal LAN Interface Board into the printer card cage until fully seated into the backplane.

Secure using two screws.

� Position the Cover Plate over the open area on the back of the printer and secure the Cover Plate using two screws.

3

Connecting the Internal and External LAN Interface Options

Internal LAN Interface External LAN Interface

� Connect your network cable to the connector on

the Internal LAN Interface Board

� Connect the External LAN Module to the

Printer’s Parallel Port.

� Connect your network cable to the connector on the External LAN Interface Module.

4

Setup and Configuration of the Internal and External LAN Interface Options Note: The Ethernet Address for your printer is printed on a label affixed to the LAN Interface

Board/Module. To configure the print server for any application you need to know the following parameters:

• IP-address for the printer (if fixed address) • IP-address of the gateway (if needed) • Used protocol (the print server supports TCP/IP, LAN Manager, Novell's NetWare, and LAT; this

manual, however, focuses on TCP/IP). • Are any 'IP-address providing' protocols used (such as BootP, DHCP, or RARP) Your network administrator will be able to give you this information. Recommended software tools EZWebCon

Lantronix's configuration tool EZWebCon is available on the Accessories CD. The latest version, however, can be downloaded from this address:

ftp://ftp.lantronix.com/pub/ezwebcon LPR Spooler

If you want to use the print server under Win95/98, you'll need a LPR spooler, as these operating systems don't support this protocol as a standard. It is recommended to use Lantronix's free tool, which can be found on the Accessories CD or downloaded from:

ftp://ftp.lantronix.com/pub/lpr_win32/ltxlpr.exe Note: Don't use NI-Print as the print servers do not work with this program.

5

Setting up the print server The external micro print servers (MPS) do not have a fixed IP-address or gateway setting, the internal version does have a fixed IP Address. The boot protocols BootP, DHCP, and RARP are enabled. This means that the MPS will send a broadcast into the network on start up in order to receive an IP-address from the responsible server. When the server assigns an IP-address to the printer (MPS), it will usually be within the same address range as the server/workstation you will use for the configuration. Most systems will work with a 'subnet mask' of "255.255.255.0". Which means that one unit in this network can only talk directly to another unit if their IP-addresses have the first three parts in common. E.g. a unit with the IP-address 172.17.31.55 can only talk directly (i.e. without using a gateway or router, see later) to a unit with an IP-address of 172.17.31.XXX, but not to a unit with e.g. 172.17.32.25. Therefore, if you want to configure the MPS from a server or workstation, it should be within the same address range, because you don't usually know if there are routers/gateways available to connect you. Note: EZWebcon will not work across routers or gateways. Reset to factory defaults If you are not sure if the MPS was set-up before, you can reset it to factory defaults by pushing and holding the 'Test' - button, located next to the network - connector, for 8 - 10 seconds while switching the unit on (With the internal LAN card you can use the 'Ethernet Reset' button instead of switching the printer off and on, as this button disconnects the power from the MPS). Now it can take up to a few minutes (!) for the MPS to pass through its start-up sequence. The reason for that is that the MPS will now ask for an IP-address using each of the enabled boot protocols. And with every protocol, it will wait until it either receives a valid IP-address or until the request times out. So be patient! The interface is online when the ACT LED is flashing slowly (~ 1 flash per second).

The three LED's show the following:

LINK: Indicates that the physical connection is OK

ACT: Green: Activity for this IP-address Red: Collisions on the network

100: Indicates a 100 Mbit connection when lit

6

When the initialization is done you can press the Test button again to get a printout of the current settings, such as the IP-address, the subnet mask and the H/W address (which is also on the label of the MPS).

The label shows: Time since power on The Server name IP Address (undefined after reset) Subnet Mask (undefined after reset) H/W Address (or MAC address) The services (important as queue names) List of protocols with status.

Entering the configuration To configure the MPS you can use any browser. We'll describe here the use of the Internet Explorer, as this should be available at every Windows installation.

Before you start make sure that the 'Internet connection' is set to 'local area network' and 'no proxy'.

Now you just enter the IP-address of the MPS you want to configure into Explorer. If you are asked if you want to connect to the Internet, answer yes.

7

Next you should see an overview over the current settings of the MPS:

This page is for information only. To change any of the parameters, you have to go to the according page.

TCI/IP Settings Usually, a printer in a network gets a fixed IP-address, because printers are generally referred to by address rather than by name. The second thing about networked printers is that they are addressed from other parts of the network as well, which means that the MPS needs to know the gateway address. Because most print protocols (Like LPR, the most commonly used) are establishing a point to point connection, i.e. they want some answers from the printer. These Answers can only get across address ranges (see subnet mask) if the MPS sends them to the network's gateway server. The gateway will transfer messages from one address range to the other. That means, without the gateway address, the printer doesn't seem to respond and therefore is 'not there'. Sometimes, however, your customer doesn't want to use a fixed address. In that case, he needs to specify which boot-protocol (DHCP, BootP, or RARP) he wants to use. To change these and some other parameters click on TCP/IP. You will be asked for an authentication password. Enter system and log in.

DMX-100

8

Next you'll get to this page:

IP-address

If your customer wants to use a fixed IP-address, you can define it here. You can only activate the according radio button after you've entered a valid IP-address. To speed up the boot process of the MPS you should deactivate all boot protocols (see Preliminaries)

If you want to use a boot protocol select only the one you want to use and disable the others.

Subnet mask

Next, set the subnet mask. Basically the subnet mask defines the address range a unit can 'talk' to without going via a gateway or router. As indicated earlier, a "255" in the subnet mask defines that this portion of the IP-address must be identical for both communication partners. A "0" defines that this portion can differ.

The following table shows some examples:

IP-address 1 IP-address 2 Subnet mask Direct communication? 172.17.32.15 172.17.32.165 255.255.255.0 YES 172.17.32.15 172.17.32.165 255.255.0.0 YES 172.17.32.15 172.17.31.165 255.255.255.0 NO 172.17.32.15 172.17.31.165 255.255.0.0 YES 172.17.32.15 172.26.31.165 255.255.0.0 NO

Gateway

Here you enter the IP-address of the system's gateway. You obtain that address from the network administrator.

Usually it's not necessary to enter an address for the backup gateway, but if needed, it can be entered here.

DMX-100

9

TCP Keepalives

This is only needed if a dynamic IP-address is used, i.e. if the MPS gets its IP-address via a boot protocol.

The lower half of the page just shows some statistics.

Update Server Settings

Once you've entered the relevant data click this button to update the MPS. Keep in mind, however, that the new settings will only take effect after rebooting the MPS.

If you've clicked on the button and the Explorer seems to hang, just reboot the MPS and then enter the new IP-address. Otherwise click on Home to get back to the start page.

Note: If you forget to set the gateway IP-address, the Explorer might come back with the error

message 'Failed to connect to www-server'. In this case you can either reset the MPS to factory defaults or use EZWebCon to set the gateway address.

Server Properties

Protocols

On this page we can define which protocols will be used. Again, the best thing to do is to disable the protocols we don't need.

The MPS will try to establish communication on every protocol enabled which again leads to quite a bit of unnecessary traffic on the network. Network administrators don't like that at all plus it is time lost during the start-up phase of the MPS. Boot Parameters

Here are the IP-address and the boot protocol settings. They should by now reflect the changes you've made on the TCP/IP page. The remaining boot parameters you can leave as they are.

10

DMX-100

11

Server Settings

Here you can change the server name to a more comprehensive one if you like to. In a pure TCP/IP environment the only effect is that the names of the services, i.e. the print queue names, are changed. So if you change the name here, be aware that you might have to adapt the set-up of your printer connection accordingly!

Reboot Server Activate this click box if you've changed any parameters here. As mentioned before, parameter changes only take effect after reboot.

Reload Firmware You should only activate this box if you've set up a TFTP Loadhost. In general, necessary firmware updates are easier done using the EZWebCon.

Port Properties

The only other setting left to be changed is the direction of the parallel port. In order to receive messages from the printer (though not supported be most applications) it is necessary to activate the Bitronics box, i.e. switch the parallel port of the MPS to bi-directional mode. The port of the printer should be set to bi-directional as well. Again, remember that this change only takes effect after a reboot of the MPS.

DMX-100

12

Setting up a LPR print queue under NT Note: You need to have administrator rights to install the queue and/or the printer driver! To install an LPR print queue: (Note: You may need the Windows NT CD) If "LPR Port" is not listed in the "Add Port" window mentioned below, open the Network Control Panel on your NT PC and click on the "Services" tab. Click on "Microsoft TCP/IP Printing" in the list of services and click on the "Add" button. You'll probably need to have your NT CD in the CDROM drive of the NT server to complete this task. Once the TCP/IP Printing services are installed you'll see "LPR Port" listed in the "Add Port" window of the "Add Printer" wizard. § Select "Settings" then "Printers" from the START menu or double-click on "My Computer" and then

the "Printers" folder.

§ Double click on "Add Printer"

§ Select "My Computer"

§ Select "Add Port"

§ Select "LPR Port"

§ Provide input to the following: Name or address of server providing LPD: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Name of printer or print queue on that server: ServerName_PCL

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx = IP address of the MPS ServerName_PCL = name of print service on the print server. (The default name is

MPS_xxxxxx_PCL, the xxxxxx should be replaced by the last six digits of MPS's Ethernet (hardware) address.)

§ Select "Close" to finish adding network port.

§ Select "Next" to chose the printer that is attached to this port. If you have not installed an NT driver for this printer yet, select "Have Disk" and get the driver from the 'Accessories CD'.

§ Change the printer name if needed then click on "Next" to continue.

§ Select "Shared" and give the printer a shared name.

§ Choose "Yes" to print a test page to the printer.

13

Setting up a LPR print queue under Win95/98 Neither Win95 nor Win98 comes with LPR support as default. Therefore you need a tool that provides this service. We strongly recommend using Lantronix's free spooler (see Recommended software tools). Once installed, it adds a Lantronix LPR port to the "Add Port" menu. Just like under NT, just enter the IP-address and the print service name. Then use the "Verify Printer Information" button to check the connection.

Now you can use this port the same way you would use a serial or parallel port.