Windows Server 2003 printing without Samba to CUPS

Kurt Pfeifle kpfeifle at danka.de
Thu Mar 1 07:56:01 PST 2007


> > John A. Murdie wrote:
> > >>John A. Murdie wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>Does anyone have experience with setting up printing services on a
> > >>>Windows Server 2003 so that its (Windows desktop) clients can print
> > >>>through it to the printers of a CUPS print server (hosted by a
> > >>>Solaris system), without going through Samba? (Occam's Razor - Don't
> > >>>multiply entities beyond necessity!) Awkwardly, I know nothing about
> > >>>Windows Server 2003 and the Windows people here know and wish to
> > >>>continue to know nothing about CUPS, but say that Windows Server 2003
> > >>>does not let them address the many printers of a CUPS server with
> > >>>URIs such as ipp:cups/pp23, ipp:cups/pp24 etc, though they can
> > >>>configure one IPP printer at a particular address with a URI such as
> > >>>ipp:pp23. Is there an overview article on this subject?
> > >>
> > >>Short version:
> > >>
> > >>Bring up the Printers & Faxes control panel, double-click Add Printer,
> > >>choose network printer, and use:
> > >>
> > >>     http://servername:631/printers/printername
> > >>
> > >>as the URL for the printer.
> > >>
> > >>You'll need to supply a local driver as CUPS doesn't (yet) support
> > >>the undocumented Microsoft IPP extension for driver download, but
> > >>that works with Win2k, WinXP, and Win2k3.
> > >>
> > >>--
> > >>______________________________________________________________________
> > >>Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
> > >>Internet Printing and Document Software          http://www.easysw.com
> > >
> > >
> > > Oops, I had meant to write just that - e.g. http://cups:631/printers/pp23 etc, instead of my shorthand above. The Windows people here tell me that the problem arises because our Solaris CUPS server is not in the Active Directory domain of their Windows Server 2003 server, and so they cannot publish the CUPS printer queues to other members of the domain. (? This is all gobbledegook to me!) I will ask them more about this matter. I presume that there might be documentation of all this in Windows knowledge databases and forums, but this is beyond my simpleton's ken.
> > >
> > > John A. Murdie
> >
> > What about adding the CUPS printers to the Active Directory server?
> > Then they should be published to the other workstations in this domain.
> > Or am I completely wrong?
>
>
> Basically correct. Details: you'd add the CUPS server (by means of
> Samba) to the AD domain as an AD member server. With the correct
> configuration this can semi-automatically publish the CUPS printers
> to the other AD member workstations (they'll think the CUPS server
> is a Windows print server offering shared PostScript printers, and
> they can retrieve and install the drivers directly from CUPS/Samba).

Forgot to insert an important sentence here: "However, the original
question had mentioned a 'without going through Samba'-condition."  :-)

> The other alternative (like Mike explained) is to install the native
> Windows drivers onto the Windows server, and let the queue's "port
> monitor" (that is roughly analogous to what on CUPS is called "backend")
> point to each URL "http://cups-server-name:631/printers/printername"
> (don't forget the "631").

"This indeed does do the job without Samba (but requires to not need
any authentication for submitting jobs to CUPS)."





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