Linux® and Windows® Interoperability Guide

Windows Print Ports

Now let's mix things up a bit. Recall the confusing fact that a local printer may actually be physically remote? This is true if it is attached to a local port handled by a port monitor that redirects a print stream elsewhere. Remember that a port usually is a physical device such as COM2, LPT1, or a file. There is no argument that these are local devices.

However, a different type of port could represent an abstract endpoint that is handled by a redirecting port monitor. A basic example is a standard RFC 1179 lpr printer. The actual lpr print queue could reside on a Linux machine or on a remote Windows server.

While we're on this local-remote subject, you should know that when you configure a network printer, the result is ...