HOWTO CUPS+Samba: printing from Windows & Linux

daff · Last edited by daff on Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:31 am; edited 25 times in total

CUPS+Samba Printer Serving/Sharing with Windows, Linux, BSD---plus automagical Windows Driver Upload

You may have noticed that I posted this HOWTO over a year ago. A lot of things have changed and there are other ways to accomplish printing from Windows to a CUPS/Samba server. Please note also that I can't really support or look after this HOWTO anymore (no time, no nerve). And finally note, despite all that, it still works when followed step by step. Problems may arise depending on your Windows clients, your ppd and typos or other (stupid) mistakes in command lines and config files.

Someone should write a better, more up to date HOWTO. Volunteers?

Version 1.2 (purely arbitrary version numbering -- I am sure some things are still missing, please send me any suggestions you have to improve this guide).

Changes:

Added manual CUPS printer driver installation procedure (when the included install script wont work, i.e. on BSD systems).
Added corrections to work with CUPS 1.1.20 and above.
Added link to troubleshooting page from Kurt Pfeifle's CUPS-Samba printing manual "Printing Support in Samba 3.0" (see Links and Resources)
Updated to use the new version of cups-samba.tar.gz
Added some troubleshooting tips to help with common problems when running cupsaddsmb.
Added a warning not to forget to create and use a user to access the printer from the Windows clients.
Added a warning about the Samba option guest only = yes. Don't use it!
Added a warning (right after the "The Printerserver" heading) about having a working domain name system setup or a working /etc/hosts file to have all hostnames resolve correctly.
Added problem description and workaround about /var/spool/samba not being accessible for Windows client users to print to the server (permission problem).
Added information about using pdbedit to add users and the Samba 3.x passdb backend tdbsam.
Added a possible solution for the dreaded NT_STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_NAME error some people seem to have encountered. See the section about configuring Samba for the [print$] share here in the guide.

Abstract
If all works the way it is supposed to, after following this guide you should have a printer on a Unix machine (which runs CUPS) which can be used by any other Unix machine (with CUPS) on the network PLUS any Windows NT/2000/XP box WITHOUT having to install printer drivers on each of the boxes manually.

What you need:

A printer (PS or non-PS, maybe not TOO new or fancy)
A working network (home/office/whatever) consisting of more than one machine (or following this guide wouldn't make much sense, would it?)

This is what we will do:

On the printserver:
- Install and configure Samba
- Install and configure CUPS
- Adding the printer to CUPS
- Adding the PS drivers for the Windows clients
On the Unix clients:
- Install and configure CUPS
On the Windows Clients:
- Almost nothing to be done

Software needed and versions:

CUPS 1.1.20
Samba 2.2.8a (also works with Samba 3.0)
Foomatic 3.0
hpijs 1.4.1 (if you have an HP printer)

Before you use this guide:

I see there are a few other guides for CUPS and/or Samba, please read them as well! They might tell you things I forgot to mention here. Also, read the very useful and well written Gentoo Printing Guide, as I don't cover kernel configuration issues and the like here.

The Printserver

First of all: be sure that all your hostnames resolve correctly. Either have a working domain name system running on your network or appropriate entries in your /etc/hosts file. cupsaddsmb often borks if hostnames don't point to the correct machines.

The printserver is any Unix machine that runs CUPS (I've set all this up on my FreeBSD machine and have a Gentoo Laptop and 2 Windows 2000 boxes using the printer, but it should make no difference---using a Gentoo machine as a server, a dozen RedHat boxes as clients and 42 Windows XP installations works the same way). For this guide I will use a Gentoo 1.4 machine named PrintServer (how original) and a HP DeskJet 930C printer. I have no experience with other printers, so you may need to adjust certain steps according to your needs.

Emerging the Software

Very straightforward:

gwarf · Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 10:07 pm Post subject:

Thanks a lot, I'm gona try this, I was too lazy to do it before, now I have no more excuses, there's not too much work left to do

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daff · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2003 12:54 am Post subject:

Please do so and tell me if everything works the way it should!
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floam · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2003 1:08 am Post subject:

What about having no print server, just a windows box (that i can see and login to on samba) with a usb printer (hp officejet v40) hooked up to it?
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graybeard · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2003 5:19 am Post subject:

Thanks for this tutorial. Here is where it takes me:

daff · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2003 7:29 am Post subject:

graybeard: Did you add root to the Samba password file with

daff · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2003 4:29 pm Post subject:

steel300 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Posts: 1155

After having some troubles with the cups driver for windows, I decided to try the Adobe PostScript drivers for windows. They were a breeze to install. You just download the self-extracting executable, then run it on the Windows machine. It then displays the standard EULA, click accept and next. Then it asks if it is a local or network printer. Select network printer, and hit next. Type the location of your printer (mine was \\192.168.1.101\Epson). Then click next. Keep clicking next until the installation finishes. It was an absolute breeze. I'm just slightly disappointed that I couldn't get the CUPS drivers working. Oh well. Great How-To though. Thanks!
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Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

daff · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 1:35 am Post subject:

That sounds cool! My experience was quite vice versa. Once I found the CUPS drivers (which wasn't SO easy, although they are on the CUPS web site) I just copied the 3 files plus the ppd-file CUPS uses into the correct directory and ran cupsaddsmb (but I described all that above in the guide). That's what I call a breeze

On Linux the included install script should do just about everything for you. What were your problems with the CUPS drivers, anyway?

The Adobe drivers gave me a hard time finding the correct files, extracting them (after installing them locally I had to search through some weird folders in the WINNT directory, brrr) and renaming them (uppercase mostly). I also don't recall being able to install them directly from a Windows onto the print server. Maybe Adobe have changed the self extracting install file. I am going to try this out when I have time and add it to the guide. Thanks!
_________________
Instead of asking why a piece of software is using 1970s technology,
start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.

daff · Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 2:02 am Post subject:

Hm, from what I have seen, the Adobe drivers install in a way that Windows thinks of the remote network printer as a local (PostScript) one. Am I right when I think that these need to be installed on every Windows client there is, since I don't see any files getting copied to the print server?

That's somewhat quite the contrary from what I want to do, which is to install printer drivers only on the print server, and then have the Windows clients automatically download the drivers from there when accessing the printer via the Network Neighborhood, right-clicking on it and clicking "Connect".

Admittedly, it's really not MUCH work to do, since the installation really IS a breeze, but when you have to administer, say, 50 Windows clients on a network, things like that can become boring

It also does not fit in the concept of the automagical driver download/upload which I am very fond of (I'd say that's the only thing I really like about Windows 2000/XP).

That's also why I had to mess around so much with finding the correct files (ADOBEPS5.DLL, ADOBEPS.HLP, etc and the like) and putting them into CUPS' drivers directory manually (/usr/share/cups/drivers/).

Please correct me if I'm wrong!
_________________
Instead of asking why a piece of software is using 1970s technology,
start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.

steel300 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Posts: 1155

I know it's not what you intended to do with the Adobe drivers, but I just couldn't get the CUPS drivers to work. I thought this would be the best place to explain how to install the Adobe drivers. I agree with you that the automatic driver download is the best way to do it, but I just couldn't get it to work. It never set up the proper drivers directory for windows. If you've seen that before, maybe I could abandon the Adobe drivers and try again with CUPS.
_________________
Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

daff · Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 1:45 am Post subject:

Well you could tell me what it is exactly that's not working. Please post the error messages, the cupsaddsmb commandline you're using and your [print$] section.
_________________
Instead of asking why a piece of software is using 1970s technology,
start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.

steel300 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Posts: 1155

Sorry it's been so long since I replied. Nothing actually returned an error message. Mainly, Windows (2000) kept trying to install local drivers, instead of grabbing the drivers from the printserver. I have been able to fix it by manually copying the drivers where they're supposed to be on the server. Thanks for the great tutorial.
_________________
Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

HoGiHung · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Posts: 8

I'm hoping there is something real easy that I missed as I've spent the better part of two days+ trying to get printing to work on my new Gentoo box.

I've emerged Samba, CUPS, FooMatic and hpijs. I've downloaded the latest Windows drivers from the CUPS website and installed it. I've updated my smb.conf file as I was using an older method (lpd & lpr) on my old RedHat server from which I'm upgrading.

I've also removed the comment marks as indicated in some How-To's in the files mime.convs and mime.types.

I can print fine from the new server (Gentoo of course) but I cannot print from the windows clients. I've been manually installing the drivers as I've had trouble getting the auto-download driver to work. From any of my Windows Machines, they can see the printer on the samba server. They can even see when I do test prints from the server. But whenever I try to print from the Windows clients, nothing happens. No jobs go into the queue.

Can anyone assist? In my smb.conf file I added the following:

[global]
load printers = yes
browseable = yes
printing = cups
printcap = cups

[print$]
comment = Print Drivers
path = /etc/samba/printer
guest ok = no
read only = yes
write list = myname, wife, root

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
browseable = no
public = yes
printer admin = myname, wife, root

I'm new to this so if you need more info, please let me know. Maybe even include where to obtain. For example, I'm still trying to figure out if my emerge of samba has the module for CUPS built in. :-(

Ho...

HoGiHung · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Posts: 8

UPDATE. I have a suspicion my problem has to do with not being able to download the drivers. I grabbed the Adobe driver like someone else mentioned above. It installed and I was able to print. But with limited capabliity - only get the Generic Option and it doesn't do color.

I'll take another crack at it tomorrow. Hopefully someone will enlighten me.

Thanks.

Ho...

HoGiHung · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Posts: 8

UPDATE:

I really don't know what to say other than it is working now. After work today I came back to work on this printing problem. The one thing I did before attacking the problem was to verify that the *.ppd file and the three cups files were in my /etc/samba/printer/W32X86 directory:

HP-DeskJet_970C-hpijs.ppd
cups5.hlp
cupsdrv5.dll
cupsui5.dll

The other thing I did was, using smbaddusr, added the account nobody. Think it already existed, as it prompted me for new password. So I put one in.

Just for grins and giggles I went to each of my Windows PCs. I was trying to see if there was an option to load the CUPS drivers. Didn't find one. But I did a test print and it worked. So I re-installed the printer on all three machines and they all can now print.

I never could get cupsaddsmb to work. *shrug*

Ho...

daff · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:11 pm Post subject:

Well, the most important thing is that you got it working now I suppose

You do have a share in your smb.conf with the same name of the printer you added in CUPS? I.e. [HPDeskJet970] for example?. Also, maybe cupsaddsmb didn't like the read only=yes option in your [print$] section (my [print$] section only has comment =, path = and write list =, and nothing else, that should be enough)? And third, I believe the 3 CUPS files and the .ppd file need to be (in your case) under /etc/samba/printer/W32X86/2/.

Could you tell what kind of error messages cupsaddsmb gave you, also what the exact command line was you used?

PS: I think the Windows clients get the printer drivers from the server whenever you do a right-click on the network printer (browsing to \\printserver, for example) and click "Connect" (only if the local copy of the drivers is different from the previously downloaded).
_________________
Instead of asking why a piece of software is using 1970s technology,
start asking why software is ignoring 30 years of accumulated wisdom.

HoGiHung · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Posts: 8

The error I've been getting when trying to do cupsaddsmb is as follows:

error connecting to 127.0.0.1:139 (Connection refused)
Error connecting to 127.0.0.1 (Connection refused)
Connection to kiragentoo failed

Password for root required to access kiragentoo via SAMBA:

I keep putting in my password but I get that message over and over.

When I try to use cupsaddsmb, the syntax is as follows:

cupsaddsmb -H kiragentoo -U root -h kiragentoo -v HPDeskjet

I've tried with my user account and the nobody account. Neither work.

I'll go back and look at those other things you suggested. At them moment I'm now trying to figure out why the DHCP server isn't working.

Thanks,

Ho...

daff · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2003 6:09 pm Post subject:

HoGiHung · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Posts: 8

There might be an issue with my Samba install. I removed the read-only line as you suggested. I also did a test:

smbclient - L kiragentoo -U root

I could not connect.

But if I ran: smclient -L 192.168.1.10 -U root and hit enter for blank password, I get the usually listing of shares and domain info.

Perhaps my Samba install is not on the mark. I've noticed that it is not processing my login scripts either. Grrr.

Ho...

HoGiHung · n00b Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Posts: 8

/e smack head! Found part of the problem. Smclient now works with -L kiragentoo. Had to do some minor editing of /etc/hosts.

Now on to the other issues. :-)

Ho...

petrjanda · Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2003 11:56 pm Post subject:

i have a problem:
root@TNT ezekiel # modprobe usbcore
FATAL: Module usbcore not found.

but I do have USB printing support in the kernel...

Vagabond · Apprentice Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 192

Modprobe will only work if you built it as a module, if its built as a module, parhaps you forgot to do "make modules_install"

Vag

blight01 · n00b Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 24 Location: Belgium

man cupsaddsmb:

"The CUPS printer drivers are preferred over the Adobe drivers since
they support page accounting, banner pages, and page labels on all
printers. However, currently only Windows NT, 2000, and XP are sup-
ported by the CUPS drivers, so you will also need to get the Adobe
driver to support Windows 95, 98, and Me clients."

Both are useful to be installed...

@+

shwag · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 4:53 am Post subject: CUPS

The client section on configuring CUPS to print to a samba printer was great. I said to emerge cups and configure it. Maybe in the next version it can actually go into HOW to configure CUPS.