My printer works fine. For local printing. When I remote control to the computer I'm trying to set up as a print server, I can also print, no problem. For each of the client computers, if I connect the printer directly to the LPT port, I can print, no problem.

But I can't for the life of me figure out how to configure CUPS to allow me to actually *use* IPP to print from a remote computer, and a seeming lack of documentation that explains this aspect of CUPS is really starting to annoy me.

I think I've found the right URI... if the printer's name is "Lexmark" on the server, then it should be "ipp://server/printers/Lexmark", shouldn't it? Or if the printer belongs to a class like "Print-pool" it should be "ipp://server/classes/Print-pool", no?

I've gone through the cupsd.conf file, changing it to allow for all remote clients (it's behind a firewall, no wireless access, so at this point I don't care about security, I just want it working). As far as I can tell, CUPS is running with basically no security at all, and should be accepting connections from anything. I can open up those URL's in a browser window and see the printer pool just fine. And yet, every time I try to print, I get:

And I know the FQDN is working, because I've tried it by IP address and get the same error.


Enough. I'm getting a headache, and am ready to kill my computer.... could somebody *please* point me in the direction of some decent documentation that actually *explains* the configuration for remote printing? I know that this has to be a whole lot easier than it seems, but I'm at wit's end.

TIA.

cups is easy to setup, once you've done it.

1. Use static IP on server.
2. /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
You need to tell cups to allow remote's access. Look for this and change. Then restart cups.
<Location />
Order Deny,Allow
Deny From All
#Allow From 127.0.0.1
#Allow just your lan
Allow From 192.168.2.0/24
# or everything
#Allow From All
</Location>

3. Make sure your firewall ipp is open.
3a. Remote browser's url: http://localhost:631 and add printer.
4. Your remote connection looks right. Make sure the server is listed in the remote's /etc/hosts, or just use the IP.

select ipp and add the below on that line.
ipp://<server ip>/printers/<name of printer on server>

ie:
ipp://192.168.2.111/printers/hp940c
of if /etc/hosts has your server listed
ipp://wildcat/printers/hp940c
finish with type of printer.

Shouldn't take but about 1-min.

You can even point -n- click with KDE. Don't know about gnome.

edit: added 3a.

when I set up my printer I used this guide.
It has worked great. Basically is says what -X-
said, but it shows you the actual code that goes
into /etc/cups/cupsd.conf. It also will help you
out with samba printing.

-tank

Ok, I've gotten it working. Thanks for the help.

As it turns out, my problems were being caused by having not changed /etc/cups/mime.types and /etc/cups/mime.convs to enable raw printing. I'd also done something dumb, by not having installed ghostscript or a2ps on either of my Linux systems (laptop or desktop).

See, until quite recently, the printer in question was decidedly in the "WinPrinter" category. Until recently, I had never found a usable driver, and the last time I installed my linux systems, I decided to save a little hard drive space. After finding a driver on www.linuxprinting.org that actually worked, I decided to give networking the piece of junk another go.

So... install ghostscript and a2ps on the laptop/desktop, and half of my problems are gone. I'm able to print through CUPS using exactly the URI that I'd figured out previously.

Now I have to get Windows interoperability working. She-who-shall-be-obeyed prefers Windows, because she insists on using MS Office. I've had all the arguments, and there's no sense trying to convert her. Because I didn't have mime types enabled, and because Windows error messages were utterly useless, I'd assumed that Windows was having the same problem as Linux. It wasn't. Once I enabled raw printing in the mime files (at the bottom), I was able to get Windows working with IPP, as well.


Funnily enough, I hadn't even realized that raw printing was off by default until I said screw it, and started trying to get it working through Samba. Once I read the Samba.org documentation, specifically the "common errors", I realized my mistake, and fixed it in about 5 seconds. They should really put that somewhere obvious in the CUPS documentation.


And if anybody is wondering why the essay, it's just in case somebody else has the same problem. I'll go nurse my shattered ego, now....