[Samba] Problem with a printer

[John H Terpstra]

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, [iso-8859-1] linux power wrote:

>
> Use the path to the printer found in lpstat -v and replace -P %p in
> the print command line with that.Possible bug in samba or cups
> versions 2.2.3 and up.

"Linux Power",

Please note that many of us use samba with CUPS without experiencing the
"possible bug"  you keep referring to. Your information is very confusing.

You say, "replace -P %p" with the path of the printer. Please explain what
you believe this does. How does it help the user in a multi-user
environment?

There is no CUPS 2.2.3! The latest version in available off www.cups.org
if it is needed.

We are unaware of a "possible bug" in samba-2.2.3 except one caused by
incorrect configuration. CUPS is a very intelligent printing back-end. If
samba has been compiled while the CUPS libraries installed then all
you need is to configure CUPS correctly for your printer. Samba needs in
smb.conf only the following for CUPS support:

[globals]
...
printing = CUPS
printcap = CUPS

You do need a share called [printers] with the normal defaults (see:
~samba/examples/smb.conf file). The purpose of the [printers] share is to
provide a spooling directory (not in the CUPS spool!) to receive the print
job from the MS Windows client. On completion of receipt lpr will
submit the print job to the CUPS spooler. Sending any job direclty to a
hardware device I/O port is bad practice.

For the rest, you can configure your MS Windows printers as any postscript
printer, or you can install explicit printer drivers for your printer, in
which case you install a RAW mode printer in CUPS (ie: No drivers in CUPS)
and print to it.

If you do not want to use NT SpoolSS support (needed for point and click
in Win2K/WinNT) then set in [globals] "nt spoolss = No".

Kurt Pfeifle has given some excellent information about how CUPS works and
how to configure samba to work seemlessly with CUPS. Either present better
information than Kurt has, or else please stop giving bad advice on this
list.

- John T.


>  Örn Hansen <orn.hansen at swipnet.se> wrote:
> I've got cups setup, to do the printwork. A setup, that was used with 2.2.3a
> of samba (same smb.conf), but it fails with 2.2.5. When using smbclient or
> the spoot client to connect to the samba printer resource, it tells me that
> it's a bad network name. Any known issues?
>
>

-- 
John H Terpstra
Email: jht at samba.org