I am in the process of building a print server for my organisation. I want to make it possible for pc's on one subnet to be able to print on another subnet. I was wondering if anyone maybe have tips for me? I am using an Ubuntu 14.04 server which are connected to both subnets. Thank you in advance!
1 Answer
Using CUPS
provided that people from both subnet can connect to your server, you can use easy-to-setup CUPS
Open the CUPS admin web frontend (https://servername:631/admin)
Click "Add Printer" on the "Administration" tab
Choose the way that your printer is connected and enter the appropriate URL. Examples:
LPD protocol:
lpd://hostname/queue
Internet Printing Protocol
ipp://hostname/ipp/port
Forwarding the jobs to a Windows print server (Note: Vista and higher don't allow anonymous connects by default. You have to provide a username and password for the connection)
smb://username:password@domain/servername/printername
Enter a name for the printer
Choose "Raw" for the printer vendor and model
Save the the settings
Using SAMBA
I am recommending SAMBA because sometimes it is easy to deal with
If your client's Windows version is below Windows 2000 or if you experienced troubles with IPP you can also use Samba for sharing. Note of course that with Samba this involves another complex piece of software. This makes this way more difficult to configure and thus sometimes also more error-prone, mostly due to authentication problems.
To configure Samba on the Linux server, edit /etc/samba/smb.conf
file to allow access to printers. File smb.con
f can look something like this:
/etc/samba/smb.conf
[global]
workgroup=Heroes
server string=Arch Linux Print Server
security=user
[printers]
comment=All Printers
path=/var/spool/samba
browseable=yes
# to allow user 'guest account' to print.
guest ok=no
writable=no
printable=yes
create mode=0700
write list=@adm root yourusername
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Thank you, if my clients are macs, most of our clients Ubuntu, Mac and a few windows Nov 14, 2015 at 6:05
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@user238156 I think samba is better because it works with all OS: windows, linux and Mac. what problem you are facing? did you try first part? Nov 14, 2015 at 6:10
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Well I will only be able to try it out on Monday. I am based in Russia. So time differences makes things slightly difficult. One thing I would also like to do is that not all the printers will be easily visible. Maybe password protected or that you need to know the path of the printer. So I need samba and cups, you think? I will try it out on Monday. Thank you Nov 14, 2015 at 7:41
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@user238156 both the options are available. printers with password and printers without password. Nov 14, 2015 at 8:08
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Thank you. I will try it on Monday and will let you know. Thank you so much Nov 14, 2015 at 8:14