[cups.general] samba + cups and missing drivers after server

[Jeff Hardy]

On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 01:18 -0400, ip.guy at optushome.com.au wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> I've got an interesting situation with samba + cups.
> 
> when i first install and configured cups (with samba) to allow our windows workstations to print to our 50 or so printers, all was successful, restarting cups or samba didn't cause any problems.
> 
> i have noticed on both occasions when the entire Linux server needed rebooting, due to hardware failure, that all cups drivers, installed via windows print manager were missing
> 
> the first time this happened i thought it might have been a one off but after another restart i've noticed the same thing.
> 
> any comments or suggestions ?


Do you mean your Windows drivers, installed via the remote Add Printer
Wizard from clients?  In any event, Windows driver info is stored in the
various Samba .tdb files, which could easily have been corrupted from a
hard reboot or crash.  These are typically located in /var/cache/samba
or /usr/local/samba/var/locks.  Some should be backed up, especially
ntprinters.tdb, ntdrivers.tdb, etc., using tdbbackup.  Others are cache
files that can be wiped (such as everything in the printing
subdirectory).

I have seen corrupted cache .tdb files resulting in horrible printing
output, and corrupted important .tdb files resulting in very bad errors
upon printing attempts.  I can imagine having everything disappear is a
possibility.  Grep for 'bad magic' in your samba logs directory to
start.  People on the samba list might have more info.