Fedora + Samba Printing: Any good HowTo's?

[IanWaring]

Can anyone recommend a good troubleshooting guide for Samba that will help me diagnose my small config in a methodical way?

I have a fairly simple network. One fixed IP address assigned to the ADSL side of my Linksys WAG54G router, it's local side assigned 192.168.1.1, my Fedora server fixed at 192.168.1.2, and two Windows XP machines taking DHCP off the router (192.168.1.10 and 192.168.1.11 in whichever order they appear). I have the router set to consider my Linux box as it's DMZ destination for any unsolicited external traffic.

I have an HP printer on my Linux box which works fine locally using CUPS. I want to let the Windows XP machines (one Home Edition, the other Windows XP Pro) share the same printer. They can all see each other and the Windows machines seem happy to share everything they've got - but both steadfastly refuse to play with my Linux server (beyond acknowledging it's name and existence).

While i've found everything else very simple, i've been trying to make this work for 3 days now. ATM, I can see the server from the XP boxes, but get failed access permissions and an inability to see any printer service from them. Googling around, it looks like this is a very common problem. I must be doing something basic wrong (I can't suss out if the Windows machines need to know passwords to access the smbguest account on my server, or where I place same if needed).

Anyone know a good guide? Or do I head over to Amazon and enrich O'Reilly a bit more ? :-)

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Ian W.

[kel]

Have you looked at http://www.tldp.org, the linux documentation project for a howto? Try there.
The other thing you may wish to try is using the SWAT module in webmin to configure this service. Setting up webmin is pretty easy and it has a nice GUI for configuring this sort of thing.
It sounds like your smb is sharing the printers properly. If you use
$ smbclient -L localhost on your *nix box to see what it is sharing (ignore the password request and hit return). If you see the printers being listed then check your firewall config to insure you're not blocking your own service to the inside (use $ nmap localhost, $ namp outside-interface, $nmap inside-interface to see if the service is being shared in the way you expect, etc.).

[IanWaring]

I ended up pulling my hair out - I could get as far as seeing the Server listed but couldn't see the printers underneath. After 3 days trying, I found out I could use IPP and could consign my Samba experience to history - until I get some time to read up on it in more gory detail :-)

For IPP to work, Fedora FC1 needs an edit to allow /etc/cups/ mime.convs and mime.types to allow through octet streams (removal of one comment mark in both cases). Then once /etc/cups/cupsd.conf is set to allow traffic and browse options from the whole LAN, it prints both locally and from Windows XP machines like a dream. So, problem solved.

Thanks very much indeed for the pointer. I'll be back to do some reading there in due course.

Ian W.

[logan5]

OK, first off, I know this is a linux (fedora) forum, and the idea is to get linux working, but ....

The easy way, for now, is to hook the printer into one of your WinXP box's and set it up for sharing. Linux will hook up to it through cups (just use the supplied GUI printer config tool) without any problem. Not ideal, but if you can live with Windows being your printeserver it works well.

[JonR]

Originally posted by logan5
OK, first off, I know this is a linux (fedora) forum, and the idea is to get linux working, but ....

The easy way, for now, is to hook the printer into one of your WinXP box's and set it up for sharing. Linux will hook up to it through cups (just use the supplied GUI printer config tool) without any problem. Not ideal, but if you can live with Windows being your printeserver it works well.

Well, maybe. I have two WinXP boxes both offering shared printers and can't get my Linux system to print to either. When I try and run the Fed 1 printer config all it tells me is:
Unable to connect to SAMBA host, will retry in 60 secinds... ERROR: Connection failed with error NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED. The printer is shared and I can print to it from any Windows system on my LAN. Anyone got any ideas?

[kevpatts]

got this error too. no luck finding anything about it.

I'm really just trying to bump this, anyone got any ideas or solutions?

Kev

[IanWaring]

In the end, I just found IPP so easy to work with - allows a Windows XP machine to use the CUPS printer very, very easily (just remember to add the port number :631 behind the printer queue name on XP). Remove the comment marker in front of the octet stream handling in /etc/cups/mime.types and (the other mime.* file in the same directory), and everything just works.

Standards - Yoh!

[kevpatts]

But I need it the other way round, printer is on the XP machine in another room and has to stay there. I'll start a new thread cause the title on this one is irrelevant to my prob.

Thanks all the same.

Kev

[mr666white]

Ok, i'm trying to change cupsd.conf in fc2 to allow boxen other than the printserver to actually print. Every time i try to change the file cups refuses to restart. Now i'm changing the configuration amongsst the comments at the top, but there's a large chunk of setting at the bottom that are marked: "Lines below are automagicly generated - DO NOT EDIT" could they be causing my problem or is it somethiing else?

[jeru]

Not sure why it says that about editing cupsd.conf... I assume that means system-config-printer might stop working. Regaurdless.... the printer classes must be edited for network use.

I add things like;

Allow From 192.168.1.*

To the location and the printer if I want to print via IPP. I too prefer plain old cups and IPP over samba, but I have them both running side by side anyways.

If it helps anybody, all I add to smb.conf is this;

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
printer admin = root
create mask = 0600
guest ok = Yes
printable = Yes
browseable = No

[IanWaring]

Not sure why it says that about editing cupsd.conf... I assume that means system-config-printer might stop working.

Because if you don't do the two mime file edits, printing from any windows client will fail to output any paper!

Ian W.