Network Printers ?

[dead2sin]

Is it possible to setup network printers via lpadmin without the image being booted?

I tried running an lpadmin command as a post flight script via a package, but it doesn’t seem to be taking. Any suggestions for adding network printers?

I need them to be visible to all users.

Nate

[Patrick Fergus]

I doubt the creators of lpadmin ever thought about setting up printers on non-startup disks. You could use fseventer and attempt to figure out the files that are created when you set up a printer and package them up.

Otherwise, if you have any other software distribution method, you can script the creation (and deletion!) of printers easily via lpadmin.

– Patrick

[dead2sin]

Sounds good. I think I will map them using a script that runs the first time it boots. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t overlooking a simpler way of doing it.

Btw, that app you linked looks great. I’ll give it a shot =)

Thanks!

Nate

[dead2sin]

I actually tried that and when I go to print and fax in system preferences, its empty. I rebooted to make sure and still nothing. I looked at printers.conf and it indeed was the one I placed there via a custom package.

Any ideas on that one? If I could make it work with the printers.conf that would be nice.

Nate

[Patrick Fergus]

Quote by: MacTroll

All you’d need to lay down is the /etc/cups/printers.conf file.

Doesn’t CUPS create its own copy of the PPDs in /etc/cups/ppd/ ?

pfergus:~ pfergus$ ls -al /etc/cups/ppd/
total 2552
drwxr-xr-x   9 root  _lp     306 Dec 17 20:39 .
drwxr-xr-x  16 root  _lp     544 Dec 17 20:39 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root  _lp   27265 Nov  5  2007 AdobePDF8.ppd
-rw-r--r--   1 root  _lp   20008 Oct 27 16:29 Cage_Printer.ppd
-rw-r--r--   1 root  _lp  306279 Dec 17 20:39 DYMO_LabelWriter_400.ppd
-rw-r--r--   1 root  _lp  264124 Nov 19 08:05 LN130_Canon_7000.ppd
-rw-r--r--   1 root  _lp  264124 Nov 19 08:05 LS007_Canon_7000.ppd
-rw-r--r--   1 root  _lp  264124 Nov 19 08:05 LS007_Canon_7000_Custom.ppd
-rw-r--r--   1 root  _lp  149259 Nov  4 13:04 LS041_Canon_3035.ppd

There’s a few other files modified as well and I don’t know how well those would regenerate if they’re not there in the first place.

– Patrick

[knowmad]

dumb question,
When you placed the printers.conf file…. did you make certain you had the right permissions on it?
conceivably if you screw up the permissions, no one can read it… or worse, no one can read it and a new one cannot be created.

[dead2sin]

Yep, it had the right permissions. I got this working, just forgot to post about it.

Basically, all do you do is copy the /etc/cups/printers.conf file and the /etc/cups/blah.ppd for the printers mentioned in the conf file and you are done. I just made a pkg that delivered those as the payload to the appropriate place and used the same permissions that were present on the master (I added them using the lpadmin command and then copied the files).

It seems to work great. Solved the problem quite well. Thanks to all who commented on here.

Nate

[knowmad]

and now to punch the deceased equine:

can this be done via MCX?
I have a vauge memory of seeing that elsewhere.
(and yes, I am a total believer in MCX whenever possible.)

[dead2sin]

Isn’t MCX deployed via an OD server? We don’t have one quite yet, only AD.

Nate

[trondah]

https://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=using-mcx-in-the-dslocal-domain

[Patrick Fergus]

If you can convince your AD admins to extend their schema to support MCX, you could manage from AD as well. However, I don’t recall where the most current AD schema extensions are now available.

– Patrick

[knowmad]

A quick check of the WorkGroup Manager shows something interesting.
It is capable of pushing printers, BUT the choices are ‘never’ or ‘always’.
I don’t know if it is possible for it to use ‘once’ or what would be the effect if you did that.

Which is to say: It can be done via MCX but it might have to be an always thing…. not so bad if you want these to always be available, and you can allow the user to change them or not as you choose.

[Author]

Posts