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IT services for Mathematical Physics

 Printing


Printing

Printing is mostly provided by the CUPS server cups.matfys.lth.se.

Clusters and Workstations are automatically connected to all the printers served by it.

These can be usually seen by issuing

lpstat -a

at the command line. Example:

pflorido@myon:~$ lpstat -a
copy-n accepting requests since tor  6 feb 2014 15.55.56
copy-t accepting requests since tor  6 feb 2014 16.45.47
cp4525dn accepting requests since tis  4 feb 2014 11.33.28
maria accepting requests since tor 30 maj 2013 19.24.17
oldprinter accepting requests since tor 16 jan 2014 11.22.35
print2 accepting requests since tor  6 feb 2014 16.10.01
printer accepting requests since tor  6 feb 2014 17.17.13

If you have a personal machine or a windows machine you should read further.

Installation

Linux laptops and Apple or Windows machines would need to install all the printers manually.

GNU/Linux

Get to the Matfys print room and note the printer names. You will need those later.

There are four ways of installing the drivers:

Root privileges: not needed

use your printer system configurator to add the printer. It may vary depending on distributions.

When asked for the printer, choose to add a network printer and type in the URL:

ipp://cups.matfys.lth.se:631/printers/<printername>

e.g.

ipp://cups.matfys.lth.se:631/printers/maria

Repeat the above for each printer you want to add.

This should not require drivers, as they are provided by the CUPS server.

Test with lpstat -a, you should see the list of configured printers.

Root privileges: needed

The printers can be added directly to the current cups configuration using a configuration file. :!: Be careful: backup /etc/cups/printers.conf before you proceed.

Follow these steps:

  1. become root and shut down cups (may vary depending on distribution):
    sudo service cups stop
  2. download this file (sorry I didn't have the time to craft this yet… stay tuned)
  3. merge or add the contents of the file at the end of your /etc/cups/printers.conf file and save.
  4. restart cups
    sudo service cups start
  5. test with lpstat -a, you should see the list of configured printers.
3) Hackish and Fastest

Root privileges: needed

:!: This solution might prevent you to use printers outside Matfys. Use it only if you know where to put your hands.

Follow these steps:

  1. become root and shut down cups (may vary depending on distribution):
    sudo service cups stop
  2. add this line to /etc/cups/client.conf (create it if it doesn't exist):
    ServerName cups.matfys.lth.se
  3. test with lpstat -a, you should see the list of all configured printers.

If you use this, remember to comment out the ServerName line in client.conf and restart cups if you travel to a location outside Matfys.

4) Evil and Time-consuming

Root privileges: might be needed if you need to install new drivers

:?: Why is this evil? because this bypasses the print server. That means that is more likely to jam the print queue in the printer itself (will need a restart) and jam the printer itself if the driver is misconfigured (hopefully a restart will be enough LOL). Use at your own risk.

Install the printer drivers yourself, and then install the printer by getting its network address.

This may vary depending on the printer vendor, and Linux may or may not have the drivers.

In short, all you need to do is to provide the hostname of the printer. In most cases it will work if you use

socket://<printer FQDN>:9100

e.g.

socket://maria.matfys.lth.se:9100

Windows

I will write them when I have time. For the moment being, the only thing I can suggest is:

  1. Go to Printers and Faxes and add a new printer
  2. When asked for a new printer, select network printer (TCP/IP)
  3. Add the printer this way:
    http://cups.matfys.lth.se:631/printers/printername

    e.g.

    http://cups.matfys.lth.se:631/printers/maria
  4. You will be asked for drivers. If you're lucky, they're on Windows Update, if you're not, find them yourself by looking at the vendor's website.
  5. When the drivers have been installed, you should be able to use the printer.

MacOS X

No idea. OSX uses the same CUPS system as linux ,so I guess it's easy. If anybody wants to write this, contact me.


The new color printer Canon MF8540C, temporary solution

on Linux

As you might have seen there is a new printer from Canon in the print room. This printer is too new for the current print server. Therefore I installed it on monofrutti.matfys.lth.se which has a newer version of OpenSuSE. I will update the main print server once I have time.

The printer is called newprinter as the old one.

On a personal laptop you might follow instructions as I wrote above in GNU/Linux, just changing the CUPS server to monofrutti.matfys.lth.se

For Workstations, Clusters and machines that support the lp command, you can print by using the lp command pointing at the alternative print server. Example:

lp -h monofrutti.matfys.lth.se -d newprinter mycolorfulfile.pdf

on Windows

Follow the steps in Windows but replace cups.matfys.lth.se with monofrutti.matfys.lth.se


The Copier Canon iADV 5525i

Linux Workstations

The following copier queues should be used on workstations:

Use this queue… … if you belong to
copy-n N-fak
copy-t LTH

If you experience problems printing from KDE or command line:

Kde:
  1. Go to Print
  2. select the copy machine (either copy-n or copy-t depending which faculty you are)
  3. choose Properties → Advanced
  4. Scroll the menu until you find
    User Password (max ...)
    User ID (max)

    and set both to None

Commandline:

To pass the codes to the printer (should not be needed after you do the KDE thing above, but in any case):

lpr -o UserID=<code> -o UserPassword=<code> -Pcopy-t yourfile

It seems the driver for this printer is different than the previous one and KDE always tries to fallback to some weird default.


Happy printing!

it_services/mf.1393952002.txt.gz · Last modified: 2014/03/04 16:53 by florido

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