add a printer through print server

feetyouwell · 05-23-2005, 09:28 AM

How do i add a printer via a printer server? The printer type is lexmark Optra S 1650. I am using gnome, distro novell (suse 9.2).

masterspud777 · 05-24-2005, 11:57 AM

I have a similar problem that I could use some help with. In fact, I'm betting that the answer to feetyouwell's question will also be the answer to mine, so I'll pose my question here.
I have a network of 8 Sun Blade machines running Solaris 10 connected to each other and a server running Mandrake 10.0 via a switch. In addition, I've got a printer hooked up to the Mandrake server via USB.
What I want to do is allow the 8 sun machines access to the printer that is installed on the Mandrake server. The problem is that when I log into one of the Sun machines, open the Solaris print manager, and try to select the naming service as NIS (in order to get a list of printers available to me, and then install it), I am unable to authenticate to the Mandrake server to retrieve a list of printers available. The message I get is "Required login failed."
On a side note, I've already got the network set up to allow logging into the sun machines with user accounts that are on the mandrake server only, so I'm fairly confident that allowing access to this printer will be a small leap from here.

I've tried Googling this problem for a number of hours, and tried several things, but nothing has worked. So, if someone could just treat me like a dummy and explain how to go about:
a) setting up Mandrake 10.0 as a print server for a printer connected via USB, and...
b) setting up Sun Blades running Solaris 10 to be able to install printers via the Mandrake print server. (similar to feetyouwell's question)

Thanks ahead of time for your help!
Let me know if there's any more information that you need.

-Spud

feetyouwell · 05-24-2005, 02:46 PM

i solved my problem by using ip direct print, it's cheating since now i am directly connected to the printer and bypass the server. However, now i can print.

I have not worked with solaris for many printing cases, i'd imagine if you're gonna set up a printer server in mandrake, you will use cups server. if your solaris box also uses cups, then here is a printercap file from a BSD box you can read about it to see whether it helps:

Code:

lp|IS117|PS;r=300x300;q=medium;c=mono;p=letter;m=auto:\
    :lp=:\
    :rm=<your.printer.server.name.or.ip.here>:\
    :rp=<name.of.your.printer>:\
    :if=/usr/local/etc/apsfilter/basedir/bin/apsfilter:\
    :sd=/var/spool/lpd/<name.of.your.printer>:\
    :lf=/var/spool/lpd/<name.of.your.printer>/log:\
    :af=/var/spool/lpd/<name.of.your.printer>/acct:\
    :mx#0:\
    :sh:

masterspud777 · 05-24-2005, 04:45 PM

Interesting. Thanks for your info! Apparently neither the Sun machines nor the Mandrake server have a file /etc/printcap or /etc/printercap, so I'm not sure what to do. Would adding this file to the system be the key? Would the system even know what to do with the file if I added it?

I did find a link to some helpful instructions at this site under section 12.2.2 "Adding a Remote Printer", but the files that the instructions reference (namely /etc/printcap, and /etc/hosts.lpd, among others) simply do not exist on ether my Sun machines or on my Mandrake server. Should I create these files manually?

Thanks all. I appreciate your help.

-Spud

feetyouwell · 05-26-2005, 03:44 PM

Missing of /etc/printercaps might indicate you don't have cups installed, make sure cups is installed on both systems. I know you can install it on Mandrake for sure. Have you used urpmi for Mandrake, if you have that set up correctly, all you need to do is to

Code:

 urpmi cups

and it will install everything you need.