[cups.general] Create printers.conf by script?

Johannes Meixner jsmeix at suse.de
Thu Mar 16 03:15:47 PST 2006


Hello,

On Mar 15 13:31 Peter wrote (shortened):
> We have to 'duplicate' our 200 printer-queues from various
> windows-print-servers to a cups-server.

Obviously a snake pit but I try to answer nevertheless:

In general before you duplicate or migrate Windows-style
printing to Unix-style printing have for example a look at
the "two longer explanations" in
http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2004-Nov/1186.html

> our Unix-Host-System needs to print PostScript-Pages
> through CUPS to our PS-capable printers

This makes it easier because you don't need special printer
drivers for non-PostScript printers on the CUPS server.
For simple printing with the printer's built-in defaults you
could use "raw" queues in this case but if you need special
printer features (e.g. tray selection) you need PPD files.

I assume your Unix-Host-System is not a Linux system.
If it is a Linux system (or whatever system where the Samba
software runs) you could use the Windows printer shares
directly, see for example
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printing_via_SMB_%28Samba%29_Share_or_Windows_Share

If this is not possible see "man lpadmin" which parameters
you need to set up a queue for CUPS (perhaps "raw" queues
may be sufficient in your special case) and make a script of 
the appropriate lpadmin commands, see for example
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:CUPS_in_a_Nutshell

I don't know an automated script which queries Windows printer
shares and extracts the relevant information to set up matching
CUPS queues and outputs appropriate parameters for CUPS.
Even if such a script exists it can only provide a queue name
and a DeviceURI but as far as I see it is not possible to generate
an appropriate PPD file name to set up filtered queues (which
is what is normally needed) because a Windows printer share
doesn't know about any filtering and/or printer driver, see
the "two longer explanations" above.

Furthermore you must decide whether you want to access the printers
via the Windows printer shares (i.e. using the CUPS smb backend)
or if you want to access the printers directly (e.g. using the
CUPS backends socket or lpd for network printers).

By the way:
Since our support database was converted from the old HTML style
to the new Wiki stlye, all more complicated list environments are
messed up because of the limited synax of Wiki list environments
(there is no closing tag for a list item) but I don't have the
time to correct all the mess manually at once.

Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
-- 
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5      Mail: jsmeix at suse.de
90409 Nuernberg, Germany                    WWW: http://www.suse.de/





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