Uploading Printer Drivers to Samba Server

[Griff Miller]

Hello, all.

I have Samba 2.2.1a running on a Solaris 2.6 machine. It is my WINS server
and PDC. All clients are Windows NT 4 SP6.

I followed the instructions in the How-To at:

http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection.html#PRINTING

The good news is, it all seems to work fine. I have uploaded some
printer drivers to the Samba server from a client NT machine, and I am
able to set up printers on client NT machines just by navigating to
the Samba server in Network Neighborhood and double-clicking on the
various printers for which I have uploaded drivers.

But (you knew there was going to be a "but") I have a problem and a
question.

Problem: For some printers, I cannot complete the driver upload. The
problem seems to be that some of the files try to copy to C:\whatever
instead of print$ .  What will happen is that after I choose the
directory where my .inf file is, and then select the printer type,
the upload starts and files start going to print$ .  But then it will
stop, saying a particular file cannot be copied. You can see that
where it is trying to copy it is someplace out in C:\WINNT (can't
remember exactly where at the moment, and besides, it varies) .  Well,
since my printer admin account doesn't have access to that destination,
yes, there is a problem! I could make it so my printer admin account
does have access, but then the file wouldn't be going to print$ .  Wouldn't
that be a problem, too? I have noticed that the printers with this
particular symptom have .inf files that have statements in the
[DestinationDirs] that seem to direct some files to other than the 66000 destination
(whatever that is) .  Could that be the problem?  What do I need to do to
get these printers' drivers uploaded to the Samba server?

Question: I've noticed that drivers just seem to get piled all in one place
underneath print$ :

% find . -print
.
./W32X86
./W32X86/2
./W32X86/2/ADOBEPS5.DLL
./W32X86/2/TK850DX1.PPD
./W32X86/2/ADOBEPSU.DLL
./W32X86/2/ADOBEPSU.HLP
./W32X86/2/ADOBEPS5.NTF
./W32X86/2/PSCRIPT.DLL
./W32X86/2/TKP840E1.PPD
./W32X86/2/PSCRPTUI.DLL
./W32X86/2/PSCRIPT.HLP
./WIN40
./W32ALPHA
./W32MIPS
./W32PPC

My question is this: what happens if two different printers have same-named
driver files? In the case of the Phaser 840 and 850, which is what I have
installed drivers for so far, this is actually the case. There are some files that have
the same names in each driver set. So long as the files are identical, I guess it's
okay. But what if they are not? What if the ABCXYZ.dll file from one printer driver is
different from the ABCXYZ.dll from another? I checked all the files in the 840 and 850
driver sets, and of the filenames that are common, most are identical (I used cksum to see).
But not all. So I worry.

Thanks in advance for your help. Email cc's are appreciated.

-- 
Griff Miller II                   |                                           |
Manager of Information Technology | "Never anthropomorphize computers;        |
Positron Corporation              |  they hate that."                         |
griff.miller at positron.com         |                                           |