hpoj reference: CWptal-photod

ptal-photod devname [options...]

The CWptal-photod daemon implements the CWmtools "CWfloppyd" network protocol. Its purpose is to let you use CWmtools as a portable method for reading and writing files on photo cards inserted in hpoj-supported multi-function peripherals. Such photo cards are normally formatted with an MS-DOS FAT or VFAT file system.

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CWCIdevnameCW is the PTAL device name (required)

Recommended options: one (but usually not both) of the following:

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CW-maxaltports CInCW tries up to n (for example, 26) successive TCP/IP ports if the desired or default TCP/IP port address is already in use, presumably by another CWptal-photod or CWfloppyd instance

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CW-portoffset CInCW the desired TCP/IP port offset (default=0) relative to the TCP/IP base port (see CW-baseport below)

Given the following lines in CW/etc/mtools.conf (for all users) or CW~/.mtoolsrc (for specific users):

drive p: file=:0 remote drive q: file=:1 remote drive r: file=:2 remote

The CWmtools drive P: will be mapped to port 5703 on the local system, drive Q: will be mapped to port 5704, and drive R: will be mapped to port 5705.

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If you start CWptal-photod as follows: ptal-photod mlc:usb:PSC_900_Series -maxaltports 26 ptal-photod mlc:usb:PHOTOSMART_100 -maxaltports 26 then CWmlc:usb:PSC_900_Series will be bound to port 5703 and therefore drive P:, and CWmlc:usb:PHOTOSMART_100 will be bound to port 5704 and therefore drive Q:, because of the order in which the two instances of CWptal-photod are started. Drive R: will not have anything bound to it.

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If you start CWptal-photod as follows: ptal-photod mlc:usb:PSC_900_Series -portoffset 1 ptal-photod mlc:usb:PHOTOSMART_100 -portoffset 0 ptal-photod mlc:usb:officejet_d_series -portoffset 1 # Will fail. then CWmlc:usb:PSC_900_Series will be bound to port 5704 and therefore drive Q:, and CWmlc:usb:PHOTOSMART_100 will be bound to port 5703 and therefore drive P:, because specific port offsets relative to port 5703 were specified. However, the above invocation for CWmlc:usb:officejet_d_series will fail, because the "CW-portoffset 1" switch conflicts with that of CWmlc:usb:PSC_900_Series. In order to safeguard against failures due to inadvertently specifying the same CW-portoffset twice, you can still also specify something like "CW-maxaltports 26", which would have made CWmlc:usb:officejet_d_series roll over to port 5705 and therefore drive R:.

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CWptal-photod logs startup and error messages to syslog (CW/var/log/messages) in addition to logging to standard error.

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CWptal-photod currently only supports photo cards which were formatted with 512 bytes per sector.

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CWptal-photod is somewhat slow, especially on older models, because it currently reads/writes only one sector at a time when presented with a multiple-sector request from CWmtools.

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The CWfloppyd protocol was originally designed for accessing local floppy drives from a remote system you have logged into and set your X-Windows display back to your local system. As a consequence, CWmtools expects to find X cookie authentication information for each X display number which corresponds to a remote drive, even though CWptal-photod doesn't use this information. If CWmtools gives some sort of authentication failed error message with a given drive letter (for example, R:) and display number (for example, "CWCI:2CW), then run the command CWxauth add CI:2CW . 00, substituting the correct display number in place of CWCI:2CW".

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If you use the CW-bindto or CW-bindtoall options to make the device's card-reader functionality available to other network clients, then be careful to set up an appropriate firewall to prevent untrusted clients (such as on the public Internet) from accessing this service.

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If your device provides a standard USB mass-storage interface, you may get better performance and usability if you use that access method instead of CWmtools and CWptal-photod, because it allows you to mount the card as a VFAT file system and use a wide variety of Linux/Unix file-management tools.

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If you kill and restart CWptal-photod (presumably via "CWptal-init start") too quickly, then sometimes CWptal-photod is restarted before the old instance's TCP port is fully released, which may cause the new instance to use a different TCP port, which will map to a different drive letter, or to fail to start altogether. As a workaround, "CWptal-init start" delays before starting the first instance of CWptal-photod, but if this isn't enough and this problem still occurs for you, then consider splitting the restart operation into separate stop and start steps to give extra time for the TCP port to get fully released.