[Samba] Raw Printing, was cupsaddsmb and .inf files

clif clif at eugeneweb.com
Sat Oct 23 08:14:16 GMT 2004


Howdy,

I've just successfully configured a win2k system to print on a raw queue,
but apparenty not through samba.

I'm courious as to why that didn't work, and would like to help update the
documentation to cover this in more detail,
if only I understood it better.

I started by following the directions here under "Raw Print Serving Vendor
Drivers on Windows Clients":
http://us4.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/CUPS-printing.html#id2556821

But I thought these two steps were a little vauge...

	5. Install the printer as if it is a local printer. i.e.: Printing to
	LPT1:.

So why the "as if"? are we talking about the cups server to which the
printer is physically connected, or the windows client? If the former then
ofcourse it's on some physicall interface.

	6. Edit the configuration under the Detail tab, create a local port that
	points to the raw printer queue that you have configured above. Example:
	\\server\raw_q. Here, the name raw_q is the name you gave the print queue
	in the CUPS environment.

Which detail tab? Is this on the cups admin webpage or a Dialog box on the
client? I tried a lot of variations here and what worked didn't seem to
resemble this at all. Though I would like to expand on this and maybe list
some alternatives for differnt versions of windows.

What I ended up doing was useing the Add Printer Wizard (APW) on a win2k
client, and it went like this:

Add printer, Select Network pinter, Connect to a printer on the internet
or a local printer.
Type in the URL which was http://192.168.0.4:631/printers/MyPrinter_Raw.

I tried most other things that involved the other option of "Type the
printer name or click Next to browse for a printer".
I could see the printers just fine and it would finish the install with no
errors but the printer status would always say something like permission
denied, or unavailable. I also tried creating a TCP/IP port to the
printer. I looked in the samba and cups logs but never saw anything at
all. Though I could use the print test page option on the cups admin page.
Of couse I got unfilterd postscript output but thats what I expected.

I guess one problem might be that I'm useing /etc/hosts files under linux
but windows doesn't seem to have an equivelent, though the samba server
seems to do a kind of DNS for shares. I'm sorry I'm not knowledgeable on
this, I live mostly in the Unix world.

I'de appreciate any clues or education in this area so that we could clear
up at least this part of the docs to make it easyer for folks to set up
raw printing. Like a quick summery of the differences between printing via
a URL, samba share, TCP/IP port or socket.

   Thanks,
   Clif



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