Printer Issue

[Craig White]

On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 23:15 -0700, Bryce C wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 22:36 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> > On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 21:18 -0700, Richard Wilson wrote:
> > > All,
> > > 
> > > This may be a Windoze issue, but perhaps someone can give me some
> > > insights...
> > > 
> > > I have an Epson Stylus CX5400 printer/scanner combination device
> > > attached (via USB) to my Linux workstation running Fedora Core 3 (which
> > > I keep up to date).  The printer works fine with Fedora, which came with
> > > the necessary drivers for that specific model.
> > > 
> > > In order to share the printer with my work laptop and my wife's laptop,
> > > (both running Win XP) I first defined the Epson as a shared IPP printer
> > > to which my work laptop was able to establish a connection.  that is, in
> > > the XP printer set up I told it the IPP printer definition and it found
> > > it.  I then went on to tell Windows that the printer was an Epson CX5400
> > > and it found the necessary drivers for it and appeared happy.
> > > 
> > > When I tried to print to it though, the XP system ground almost to a
> > > halt and didn't print anything.
> > > 
> > > I was able to get the setup working by deleting the IPP definition and
> > > creating a Samba print queue, and I can now print from both XP systems.
> > > 
> > > This is perhaps my third or fourth serious foray into Samba and as I
> > > have to fight Windoze bigots frequently, I'd prefer not to cater to
> > > Windows in any way and go with a more standards based solution...
> > > 
> > > Any ideas from anyone as to why the IPP piece didn't work?
> > ----
> > out of the box - cups will not allow other computers to print to it.
> > Samba gets around that because when you print via samba, the print job
> > is transferred to the computer via Samba and it then becomes a local
> > print job and cups likes local print jobs.
> > 
> > Generally, all you need to do is to edit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf to allow
> > from your subnet (and of course any firewall rules must be adjusted
> > accordingly).
> > 
> > Craig
> 
> I can confirm that Windows XP both Home and Pro support IPP/Cups once
> it's setup right. You can even use it as a proxy of sorts as I do
> printing to an old LaserJet with ethernet expansion (this allows the
> users to spool the jobs to the server quickly, then close their laptops
> and be on their way to the printer.) What's more, I found getting Samba
> and SHARE security-level permissions to be way more work than was worth
> it - I found other ways to avoid it.
----
security = share is a rather abysmal configuration - trying to mimic
Win95/Win98 type sharing privileges which never was a very lofty goal to
begin with. The authors don't kill it off completely for backwards
compatibility only but I guarantee that it doesn't occupy their energy
to fix/improve it.

I think Eric Raymond has expressed his frustration with cups (as have
most of us who endeavor to configure it) but it is a very ambitious
tool.

The 2 issues that I have found that are a cups network killer are the
ones I pointed out above - you must manually tell cups to allow other
network users to print to your cups queue and you must have an opening
in your firewall to permit others to talk to the cups print queue.

Craig