Sharing a Windows 2K Printer WITHOUT Buying Server Hardware?

deesto · 07-04-2002, 02:15 PM

I'm trying to share my Windows 2000 printer with the rest of my network, but I'm having trouble accessing it with my Linux machines. I've tried every possible solution I found here and elsewhere, and while all indications seem to show that it SHOULD work, I can't print from my RH7.3 box to my Windows-based printer. The only other solution I've seen is to buy a print server, and I'm trying to avoid this if possible.
Can you suggest a way to share the printer, and also an absolute way to test the connection?
Thank you.

DavidPhillips · 07-05-2002, 03:48 PM

there is two ways to do it with your printer

use it like it is using smbprint, or install it on the linux machine and share it with samba.

it works, so something is wrong if you're not able to do it.

what have you tried, and what were the results?

deesto · 07-05-2002, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidPhillips
what have you tried, and what were the results?

I've downloaded, installed, and configured Webmin (which seems like a pretty nice tool) to recognize my W2K printer. Everything seems very nice from there, and all the options seem ok, don't even get any errors back when I select the "test whether server is up" option on the print settings. I've also added the printer using printconf-gui in KDE; from there, I've sent countless test pages that all return the result popup: "sent US Letter PostScript Testpage to "EPSON880". But the page never shows up and I don't see anything in the Win2K print queue.
One other thing I did in accordance with a post I found on this site: added an entry to /etc/printcap.local, but this did nothing but add a "CATASHTROPHIC" error returned during boot so I've removed it.

DavidPhillips · 07-05-2002, 04:32 PM

you must use printcap

try this

http://home.pacific.net.sg/~harish/linuxprint.html

or this may be better

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc.../Print2Win.pdf

DavidPhillips · 07-05-2002, 04:35 PM

can you print to it from another client?

deesto · 07-05-2002, 07:54 PM

I can easily print to the W2K-shared printer from the WinXP client, but not from Linux.
This is the addition to /etc/printcap that was apparently made by Webmin, as I haven't touched the file myself:

Code:

EPSON880|EPSON880LPR:\
 :ml=0:\
 :mx=0:\
 :sd=/var/spool/lpd/EPSON880:\
 :af=/var/spool/lpd/EPSON880/EPSON880.acct:\
 :sh:\
 :lp=|/usr/share/printconf/util/smbprint:\
 :lpd_bounce=true:\
 :if=/usr/share/printconf/util/mf_wrapper:

Should this work?

DavidPhillips · 07-05-2002, 11:06 PM

What's the /var/spool/lpd/EPSON880/.config file look like?

deesto · 07-05-2002, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidPhillips
What's the /var/spool/lpd/EPSON880/.config file look like?

Perhaps this is part of the problem... this file does not exist! There are, however, 15 files in the directory, including an empty file control.pr and an interesting file called VOLATILE, which contains the following:

Code:

This directory was created by printconf for a printconf spool.
If printconf-backend does a spool rebuild, and finds volatile
directories that do not currently have valid configurations,
it will DELETE THEM!
printconf-backend detects volatility by the presence of this file.
If you have custom spool directories made in some other manor, they
will be safe from printconf-backend's deletion as long as they do
NOT have a file in them named 'VOLATILE'.

DavidPhillips · 07-05-2002, 11:41 PM

some where there has to be the file to configure the client to know these factors

servername
sharename of printer
remote username
password

maybe just creating the .config file and putting in these details will do it.

deesto · 07-06-2002, 08:53 AM

Thanks David. I created a new file and inserted these values only, with no other parameters.
Then I tried to print a file via lpr command, and it returned nothing, no error or job number. Here's the result of lpq:

Code:

[root@hatbox EPSON880]# lpq -P EPSON880
Printer: lp@hatbox (originally EPSON880) 'EPSON880 on deestos'
 Queue: no printable jobs in queue
 Server: no server active
 Status: job 'root@hatbox+684' removed at 09:46:31.316
 Rank   Owner/ID                  Class Job Files                 Size Time
done   root@hatbox+324              A   324 README                7005 13:29:59

DavidPhillips · 07-06-2002, 10:10 AM

it's not seeing the server, try smbclient -L servername

deesto · 07-06-2002, 01:25 PM

OK, it returned a browse error, but we're on the right track there, I think...

Code:

smbclient -L deestos
added interface ip=192.168.1.103 bcast=192.168.1.255 nmask=255.255.255.0
Got a positive name query response from 192.168.1.100 ( 192.168.1.100 )
Password:
Anonymous login successful
Domain=[SANDBOX] OS=[Windows 5.0] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]

        Sharename      Type      Comment
        ---------      ----      -------
Error returning browse list: NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED

        Server               Comment
        ---------            -------

        Workgroup            Master
        ---------            -------

DavidPhillips · 07-06-2002, 02:21 PM

send the username password or enable the guest account with no password

man smbclient

deesto · 07-06-2002, 08:40 PM

After reading "man smbclient", I entered the following command successfully:
smbclient -L <remoteHostName> -U <userName>%<passWord>
The command returned all available shares, including the printer:

Code:

        Sharename      Type      Comment
        ---------      ----      -------
        EPSON880       Printer   EPSON Stylus COLOR 880

I believe this is the expected result, but shouldn't it then be working? Or do I now need to somehow store the username/password combination so that each time the client tries to print, it relays that information to the server?

DavidPhillips · 07-07-2002, 01:24 PM

that should be in the .config file