Printer Session Association

When you configure a 3270 or 5250 display session, Personal Communications lets you specify an associated printer session. This function is implemented on Communications Server, iSeries™, eServer™ i5, or System i5™ TN5250, and zSeries™ TN3270E servers. This is unique to Telnet, and is not available in the SNA environment.

The association starts at the Telnet server. In the server's configuration, there is a one-to-one correspondence when defining associated printers. When LU names and relations are already defined by the server, the server will assign the printer LU for the client. Each printer LU is configured as associated with a particular display LU.

Advantages of this association are as follows:
  • If sessions are associated, the person who configures the client workstation does not have to know any details about the printer session.
  • If sessions are associated, the person who configures the client workstation does not have to know any details about the printer session because the associated pairs are defined at the Telnet server.
  • When you start the display session, the associated printer session is started automatically. If the printer session is configured to direct output to a printer that is near you, and if you ensure that your host applications print to that session, it is convenient.
When configuring a session, if you want the server to associate a printer with the session, do the following:
  1. Click the Printer Association tab.
  2. Select Associated Printer Session.
  3. Enter the .WS file for the printer that is to be associated with the session. You can also click Browse to locate the file.
You can also set the following options:
  • Select the Start Associated Printer Minimized check box, if preferred. This option is unavailable until an associated printer is selected.
  • Select the Automatically close Associated Printer Session with this session check box, if preferred. This option is unavailable until an associated printer is selected.
  • Select Associated device name to associate the display session with any printer device that currently exists on an iSeries™, eServer™ i5, or System i5™ host. This option is only available for 5250 sessions.
Note:
  1. Stopping a Telnet session automatically closes an associated printer session, if that option was selected when configuring the session.
  2. If a 5250 printer session is associated with multiple 5250 display sessions, then the printer session ends only when the last associated display session ends.
  3. For a 5250 session, if the host name in the selected printer session profile differs from the values in the display session profile, then the display session profile host name is used instead. The display session values are not saved to the printer session profile.