Ubuntu as Home Print Server

Shared Printer Setup

This section looks at the setup for CUPS-only and CUPS+SAMBA. Both need the raw printer queue defined so that’s covered as well.

Raw Print Queue Setup

You will probably already have the printer defined to your system for printing locally from Ubuntu. If not, go have a look at the Ubuntu Printing documentation.

Creating a raw print queue (one that doesn’t do any processing of the data coming in) is as follows.

#1 – Allow the printer to accept raw data. By default CUPS is configured to not allow raw data to the printers (possible security exposure). To allow this you need to allow the application/octet-stream data type in the mime file….

• Go to /etc/cups
• Edit each of the mime.* files (I did mime.convs, mime.types and mime.types.lexprint) and uncomment the application/octet-stream line by removing the hash (#) from the start of the line. Save the files

The entry in mime.types looks like…

########################################################################
#
# Raw print file support...
#
# Comment the following type to prevent raw file printing.
#
application/octet-stream

The entry in mime.convs is similar…

########################################################################
#
# Raw filter...
#
# Uncomment the following filter to allow printing of arbitrary files
# without the -oraw option.
#
application/octet-stream	application/vnd.cups-raw	0	-

#2 – Add the new (raw) printer definition. Many of the documents I found on the web talked about defining the printer as raw when you define it. This did not work for me; there was no way of specifying a “raw” driver when I created it. So…

• I started CUPS; open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:631.
• First step is to create the printer:
  1. Select the Add Printer button.
  2. On the Add New Printer page I specified a name (e.g. “E210_Raw”) location and description, and clicked Continue
  3. On the Device for … page I selected the physical printer and clicked Continue
  4. On the Model/Driver for … page I selected the appropriate driver. This doesn’t matter as you’ll come back and change this in a bit. Click Add Printer.
  5. You’ll get a message that the printer has been added and then you will be presented with the Printer Options page.
• Next step is to modify the printer to be a raw printer:
  1. Click on the Printers tab, find the new printer on the page and click the Modify Printer button for it.
  2. On the Modify Printer … page just click Continue
  3. On the Device for … page just click Continue
  4. On the Make/Manufacturer for … page select Make: of Raw and click Continue
  5. On the Model/Driver for … page select Model: of Raw Queue (en) and click Modify Printer
  6. You’ll get a message that the printer has been modified and then you will be presented with the Printer Options page.

You should now have two printers defined (i.e. two print queues), like the following:

You’re now ready to setup printing for this printer on a Windows system.

CUPS-only Setup

On the Windows system open the Printers and Faxes menu option and Add a New Printer. The first step in the Wizard is to select a network printer to add.

On the next page of the Wizard, select “Connect to a printer on the Internet or on a home or office network”.

The printer URL will be http://{linux server hostname or IP address}:631/printers/{printer name}. For example: http://dell4700:631/printers/E210_Raw. This tells windows to send the requests to the dell4700 machine, port 631 (CUPS is listening to this port) printer queue E210_Raw.

Next click Finish.

This completes defining the printer on Windows. You should be able to print a test page to the printer.

The next section looks at the CUPS+SAMBA configuration

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