Friday 7 September 2007

Network Printing

Finally got 2 Ubuntu machines sharing a printer over a wireless network using this tutorial: http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Networking/Setting_Up_a_Network_Printer_using_CUPS

I had to stop the firewall on the server, using Firestarter, while setting the printer up. I also had to creae a new policy to always allow access to the print server (Ubuntu machine) 0n port 631 from the client machine's IP address.

Once the Ubuntu machine was setup as a server for the printer it took about 5mins to get an Windows XP machine sharing the printer, over the same home network, using this how to: http://www.owlfish.com/thoughts/winipp-cups-2003-07-20.html. The only bits I actually had to use are posted below.

( Note: my network printer address - http://192.168.2.4:631/printers/LaserJet-1018)

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Hostname lookup


Another common step is to ensure that hostname broadcast by CUPS is accessible from the Windows XP machine. If your CUPS machine is accessible using a name rather than just an IP address then you don't need to do anything for this step. If the CUPS machine is not accessible via it's hostname then you need to set a mapping between the CUPS hostname and its IP address in the Windows hosts file. Under WindowsXP the host file is in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS, in Win2k replace WINDOWS with WINNT. The format is simple:
# Example hosts entry
192.168.0.3 rock

Under some CUPS server configurations you will be able to use the IP address instead of the hostname, but often only a hostname will work.

Postscript Printing


To use a printer queue as a Postscript printer requires a Windows XP Postscript printer driver, such as the built-in MS Publisher Imagesetter or this freely available one from Adobe.

Built-in MS Publisher Imagesetter


To use the MS Publisher Imagesetter driver, use "Add Printer" to add a new network printer, select "Connect to a printer on the Internet..." and enter the URL for your printer queue (e.g. http://rock:631/printers/Epson). When prompted for a driver select a Manufacturer of "Generic" and the Printer "MS Publisher Imagesetter".

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