Hello,

I am trying to interface with some wheel/tire balancers that are running some sort of *nix OS. I noticed that I can add network printers from the balancer's gui and it has a cups-pdf driver. However, I cannot seem to "print" from the Balancer despite the fact that I can "print" to it from standard PC's.

I noticed when I added the printer on a remote linux OS, that it had to install some samba dependencies, so I'm thinking the *nix balancers are missing the necessary dependencies for the printer share since the share defaults to samba protocol.

That being said, what type of quick n dirty method might make that Balancer print to a shared cups-pdf printer using it's cups-pdf driver? Is there some sort of old school *nix method of printer sharing that might work?

Thanks,

Just for confirmation, are you trying to print to the cups-pdf printer on the balancer itself or another computer?

Just a for your information but you should be able to print to/from other linux computers just using cups instead of samba. How could depend on cups versions.

I'm assuming it is designed to print to another computer as there is no immediate way to browse the filesystem to retrieve the pdf from the balancers.

How do I "just use cups"? I thought it was sharing the cups-pdf printer via samba seeing as how my linux box started installing samba dependencies when I added the remote printer. How do I stop that behavior and just use cups?

Thanks for your help,

If the balancer is running cups, then pointing your browser at the balancer's ip @ port 631 should yield the cups interface. You can print from there. Example: balancer ip 192.168.1.45, browse to 192.168.1.45:631

I suspect the GUI could be a limitation without knowing how it works. Accessing the cups web configuration if possible would be the easiest if it allows remote administration and you know the root password.

On the computer via the cups web administration page you can select share printers connected to this system. Depending on cups version the balancer might automatically detect the PDF printer. Otherwise you can manually enter the printer
URL.

ipp://server_IP/printers/cups-PDF (might be a different printer name).

You then need to select a generic postscript printer driver. You should be able to browse the built in drivers and just select any HP postscript model like the HP 6.

Might need to change the computer's samba configuration so it allows access without needing a password.

If the Balancer has a Cups-PDF driver, that does not necessarily mean it has CUPS does it?

Thanks,

Technically no but would not make sense if cups wasn't.

I think cupsd.conf. is only listening on port 631 for local host.

Since the drive is encrypted, I cannot open that up.

what if I isolate a pc from all networks and hook it to the balancers directly via a crossover cable and set the pc's ip to 127.0.0.1? would that possibly trick the balancer into pulling up the cups admin page?

No, out of curiosity is there a manual that explains how to connect the balancer to a printer? Is there any online documentation we can read that might help us understand how it works?

I can give it to you in a nutshell. The Balancer's UI (The only UI they will allow me to reach) contains 2 things in regards to setting up a printer.

1) It asks which driver you want to use. All of the drivers are for old printers, but they do have a cups-pdf driver.
2) It asks what the IP address is.

I tried sending a cup-pdf job from the balancer to a shared cups-pdf printer, but this didn't work since the share used Samba.
Can I print directly cups to cups without using the cups admin page or the samba share? If so, how?

Thanks,

Printing to any shared printer on a computer would require the printer share name and computer network name or IP address regardless of network protocol i.e. cups or samba. If you could specify the share name I would expect that to be in the manual.

If all you can specify is printer and IP address then it might not be possible to print to a computer without access to the operating system. There are many tools that can be used to write a script to create a "virtual network printer".