Re: [gentoo-desktop] Network access to a CUPS printer

[Lindsay Haisley]

On Mon, 2008-06-30 at 11:55 -0400, Jim Ramsay wrote:
> >       * "ipp://hostname/printers/printername" which in my case would
> > be "ipp://vishnu.fmp.com/printers/hpdj_1120c (or I can substitute
> >         the LAN IP address for the hostname)
> >
> >       * "http://hostname:631/ipp/queue" which appears to translate
> to
> >         "http://vishnu.fmp.com:631/ipp/queue" with no specification
> > for the printer in the URI.  Since the hpdj_1120c doesn't have a
> >         queue specified in cups, I assume this URI should be used
> >         literally.
>
> I've done this with great success.  On my Linux box, for example, I
> have a printer called "Engineering", and I use the following URI
> in my WinXP box (running inside a VM):
>
> http://10.8.50.71:631/printers/Engineering

Thanks.  This is _really_ good to know.  I've played numerous variations
on the URI syntax and never seemed to get it right.  CUPS documentation
tells one how to connect via CUPS to an exported printer elsewhere, but
not very well how CUPS exports printers for use elsewhere.

I basically bombed on this project.  I followed directions to load PS
drivers via samba, and that didn't work, so now I need to find out how
to UNload them from Windows, which wants to attach the printer to the
previously downloaded driver willy-nilly.  Editing the registry didn't
help.  I'll apparently have to go find the drivers and expunge them from
the C:\windows\system32 directory tree.  I have a RAW printer configured
in CUPS, which ought to help. The main purpose of this was give access
to a printer from a VMware guest installation of Windows XP.  I ended up
solving the problem by connecting XP directly to the printer port via
the virtual parallel port expressed in VMware.  This works considerably
better with VMware 6 than it did with VMware 5, so for now I'm OK with
the problem.  If I can figure out how to expunge the drivers altogether
from XP I'll take another crack at it via shares.

This facility is fairly complex to set up and and the documentation for
it sux.  CUPS documentation is absolutely abominable, and the Gentoo
HOWTO docs have errors that should be corrected, e.g. setting 'printcap
name' to 'cups' in smb.conf doesn't work, although all the docs tell one
to do this.  CUPS maintains a printcap at /etc/printcap and this should
be the value of 'printcap name' in smb.conf, in which case individual
printers don't need to be defined explicitly in smb.conf but are
exported as shares through the '[printers]' section.

-- 
Lindsay Haisley       | "In an open world,    |     PGP public key
FMP Computer Services |    who needs Windows  |      available at
512-259-1190          |      or Gates"        | http://pubkeys.fmp.com
http://www.fmp.com    |                       |

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