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Sunday, 24 September 2006 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daYesterday when ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bats22 was over, we talked a bit about my home networking, because I've got this tangle of problems to solve. Our home firewall/router/wireless/printserver (SMC Barricade) is showing its age (5 years now! eek...) and flaking out frequently.
As part of this, I decided to give another shot at adding the home printer to a Linux box. This way I could simplify the constraints on what I needed to replace, since parallel print-servers are no longer very common in home firewall/routers.
I was successful last night, with only about an hour of work and googling. ...I'll put my notes here, though really they should go somewhere googleable. This was much simpler than I expected it to be, since the last time I tried I spent many frustrating hours.
Actors:
Debian 3.1 ("stable") server; internet-connected behind HW firewall
Mac laptop(s); clients.
HP DeskJet (model 6MP), parallel interface.
1) "apt-get install printconf" installed all the programs I needed, including CUPS. One of the questions it asked was "configure printers now?" Since it said that could be done later with "printconf" I said no, to try and minimize concurrent steps.
2) printconf didn't recognize the printer; but that's fine; linuxprinting.org was useful for recommending drivers (step 5 below).
3) CUPS was installed by default to run on local port 631. I looked in /etc/cups and saw that httpd.conf allowed connections from localhost. I added a line after "Allow From 127.0.0.1" to also allow access to any other host on my local network. ("Allow From 192.168.1.*") I also added the same line at the bottom for administration access. Otherwise, the debian defaults are fine.
4) From my mac, I browsed to http://server:631/ (replacing "server" with my server's IP on the local network). I added the printer to CUPS via the web interface. That was basically intuitive, clicking through the manufacturer and model. Device: Parallel Port #1. I named the printer "lj". Done.
5) linuxprinting.org recommended a new ppd file (driver). Since I'm using CUPS, all I needed to do was drop the ppd file into the /etc/cups/ppd directory, moving aside the one CUPS already made for my printer.
I printed a test page, and it worked. OK, now I could print from the server. Halfway there! [1]
6) On the mac, I used "Printer Setup Utility" to add a new printer. IP Printer, "IPP" (not LPD). For the address I used my server's IP. The queue name took a bit of puzzling though config files [2]. What worked was "printers/lj" (as "lj" was the name I'd given the printer on the server).
I test-printed a page... and it worked. Easy as that.
[1] at the same time I noodled with the web interface I was also checking the config files in /etc/cups to see what it was doing. I noted that printers.conf had added the printer as: "device URI: parallel:/dev/lp0". That made sense too, since it was parallel.
[2] the mac's config files are also in /etc/cups. Yes, macs use the same programs under the hood. So I was also looking in the mac's /etc/cups/printers.conf to see what changed when I changed different things in the GUI; meaning I could make more intelligent guesses in the web interface.
The mac side was much simpler than I expected. Last time, my test client-computer was a Windows box; I was also luckier with my googling. The first few comments on this page told me everything I needed to add on the client; I just edited the config file on the mac to match what it would've been in Ubuntu.
bats22 was over, we talked a bit about my home networking, because I've got this tangle of problems to solve. Our home firewall/router/wireless/printserver (SMC Barricade) is showing its age (5 years now! eek...) and flaking out frequently.As part of this, I decided to give another shot at adding the home printer to a Linux box. This way I could simplify the constraints on what I needed to replace, since parallel print-servers are no longer very common in home firewall/routers.
I was successful last night, with only about an hour of work and googling. ...I'll put my notes here, though really they should go somewhere googleable. This was much simpler than I expected it to be, since the last time I tried I spent many frustrating hours.
Actors:
Debian 3.1 ("stable") server; internet-connected behind HW firewall
Mac laptop(s); clients.
HP DeskJet (model 6MP), parallel interface.
1) "apt-get install printconf" installed all the programs I needed, including CUPS. One of the questions it asked was "configure printers now?" Since it said that could be done later with "printconf" I said no, to try and minimize concurrent steps.
2) printconf didn't recognize the printer; but that's fine; linuxprinting.org was useful for recommending drivers (step 5 below).
3) CUPS was installed by default to run on local port 631. I looked in /etc/cups and saw that httpd.conf allowed connections from localhost. I added a line after "Allow From 127.0.0.1" to also allow access to any other host on my local network. ("Allow From 192.168.1.*") I also added the same line at the bottom for administration access. Otherwise, the debian defaults are fine.
4) From my mac, I browsed to http://server:631/ (replacing "server" with my server's IP on the local network). I added the printer to CUPS via the web interface. That was basically intuitive, clicking through the manufacturer and model. Device: Parallel Port #1. I named the printer "lj". Done.
5) linuxprinting.org recommended a new ppd file (driver). Since I'm using CUPS, all I needed to do was drop the ppd file into the /etc/cups/ppd directory, moving aside the one CUPS already made for my printer.
I printed a test page, and it worked. OK, now I could print from the server. Halfway there! [1]
6) On the mac, I used "Printer Setup Utility" to add a new printer. IP Printer, "IPP" (not LPD). For the address I used my server's IP. The queue name took a bit of puzzling though config files [2]. What worked was "printers/lj" (as "lj" was the name I'd given the printer on the server).
I test-printed a page... and it worked. Easy as that.
[1] at the same time I noodled with the web interface I was also checking the config files in /etc/cups to see what it was doing. I noted that printers.conf had added the printer as: "device URI: parallel:/dev/lp0". That made sense too, since it was parallel.
[2] the mac's config files are also in /etc/cups. Yes, macs use the same programs under the hood. So I was also looking in the mac's /etc/cups/printers.conf to see what changed when I changed different things in the GUI; meaning I could make more intelligent guesses in the web interface.
The mac side was much simpler than I expected. Last time, my test client-computer was a Windows box; I was also luckier with my googling. The first few comments on this page told me everything I needed to add on the client; I just edited the config file on the mac to match what it would've been in Ubuntu.
