[Samba] Problem with cups and samba

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Don Hammer wrote on Samba-digest:

> Message: 3
> Reply-To: <hammerd at evanite.com>
> From: "Don Hammer" <hammerd at evanite.com>
> To: <samba at samba.org>
> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 13:40:58 -0700
> Subject: [Samba] Problem with cups and samba
> 
> I am using RedHat 7.3, Samba 2.2.5 and Cups 1.1.14
> I have the printers setup and browseable from a windows client. I can print
> to them, and the jobs spool to the directory defined in the smb.conf file,
> but they never leave the spool directory.
> Any ideas where to start looking for this?

Hi Don,

as you don't outline, which Windows variant you have, which printers
you use and which driver there are installed on the Win clients, here
is a guess:

-----------------------------------------------------------------
  edit the fils "/etc/cups/mime.convs" and "/etc/cups/mime.types"
  to allow printing of "application/octet-stream" file types.....
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the reasoning behind it:

* Likely you have non-PostScript printers: PCL, DeskJet, whatever...
* Likely you have the native Windows drivers installed on the clients.


"Raw" printing in CUPS is by default only allowed for *known* file types.
CUPS is auto-typing incouming jobs and tagging a MIME-type to them.
"Known" are all files of MIME type other than "application/octet-stream".
"application/octet-stream" is another word for: an unknown file type.
This is what most files generated from drivers on Windows (not the
PostScript ones, but PCL, Epson and what-have-you) are being "auto-typed"
upon arrival in the CUPS spooler. Because of their proprietory formats
it is not possible to set up rules to recognize *and* handle them by
filters.

To not send unknown file types towards your printer *by default* is a
pure security precaution. To allow it, requires your conscious
configuration. This is what removing the comment signs in
"/etc/cups/mime.*" will do.

So check this out and report back!

Cheers,
Kurt