[Samba] Redhat 8 Samba+CUPS

[Ulrich Kohlhase]

Baxter,

> Hi all.  In the interest of using a more mainstream business
> distribution, I changed my faithful file/printserver over to Redhat
> 8.0 from Debian Testing. Now, my shared directories are working fine
> but printing is not working.  I can browse to the printer using net
> view or Network Neighborhood in Windows or using smbclient -L in
> Linux but printing is not working. I've checked /var/log/samba/ and
> the only errors I found dealt w/ permissions on /var/spool/cups which
> I fixed w/ a chmod 1777.  Right now I suspect the printcap name =
> /etc/printca is my problem but I'm not sure.

You didn't include your printer share definitions, but we'll have a look at
the global part first:

> path = "/var/spool/cups"

Probably a better idea is to have another spool directory for Samba's print
files. This makes your configuration more flexible and avoids possible
permission problems with the cups spool dir. We use "path =
/var/spool/samba" and did a "chmod 777" on this dir. Cupsd is running as
user "lp" in group "lp" (see cupsd.conf) and a listing of "/var/spool/samba"
shows

drwx------   3 lp   lp       12288 Mär 23 11:22 cups
drwxrwxrwx   2 lp   lp          25 Mär 23 11:22 samba

If you omit the "-r" switch usually used with the lpr print command, the
(postcript) print files should stay in the Samba spool dir and not be
deleted. This may be useful for debugging purposes.

> printing = cups
> printcap name = /etc/printcap

In the thread "Clarifying CUPS Printing" Kurt Pfeifle gave a detailed
description regarding the "printing" and "printcap name" parameters, see
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=samba&m=103619611005286&w=2
Please check if Samba is compiled against the cups library with the
following command "ldd `which smbd` | grep libcups".

> valid users = bax morbo amy nobody planetexpress bender
> invalid users = root wins support = true

Not a printing related question, but why do have "valid users" in the global
part? Users without valid /etc/passwd and smbpasswd entries can't even
connect to shares unless "guest ok = yes" is set. A nice and easy option is
to disable users, see "man smbpasswd". What reason do you use "invalid users
= root" for and shouldn't the "wins support" param follow on the next line?


> default = printers

Why do have this parameter in your smb.conf? Is it still supported and what
does testparm say?

Does printing from linux work at all?

Another thing to watch for are PAM settings and restrictions if the Samba
and / or Cups packages are compiled with PAM support. You specified "obey
pam restrictions = Yes" in your smb.conf, which may be related to your
printing problems. See the files for cups and Samba in "/etc/pam.d".


HTH,
Uli