printing through netbios alias

[Jeremy Allison]

On Wed, Nov 21, 2001 at 10:16:03AM -0500, Robert Walk wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> We are trying to set up a print server for our Windows domain on Samba
> 2.2.2 and Red Hat 7.1. It was decided to use a netbios alias for the
> print server so that it would be easier to move in the future if the
> need arised.  From now on the actual netbios name will be reffered to as
> "server" and the alias as "alias".  This solution has worked well on
> Win9x clients, however not on WinNT/2K.  The problem is that the NT/2K
> machines "see" the printer as being connected to the real netbios name
> of the Samba server.  Thus they cannot find the Samba Printer Port
> associated with the netbios alias name.  When browsing to "alias"
> through network neighborhood, going into the printers folders and
> pulling up the properties it reads at the top "Laserjet on Server
> Properties" when it should be "Laserjet on Alias Properties".  No
> printers show up when browsing to "server".  The printer does install
> and it will print, however when going to the Ports tab in the printer
> properties no Samba Printer Port is listed.  Also the status of the
> printer is "Access denied, unable to connect". Of course everthing works
> just fine when the printers are shared without the alias but I am
> stubborn fool and want it to work my way!!
> 
> I am appending my smb.conf and smb.conf.alias (the smb.conf.server file
> exists but is currently blank).  Any help or suggestions will be greatly
> appreciated.

This is a known problem with all Samba 2.2 and CVS versions at the
moment. The issue is that the printer driver tdb's store the primary
netbios name as part of the devmode struct, thus accessing them by
a netbios alias doesn't work.

We need to do some work on this to make it work in the future.

Jeremy.