[cups.general] CUPS in Pure Networked Environment

[Norm Jacobs]

There are a number of ways that you might choose to configure your 
network printing here: central server, multiple servers, ...  What ever 
method you choose to configure, CUPS can advertise/discover print queues 
through a variety of methods (see 
http://cups.org/documentation.php/man-cupsd.conf.html)
    BrowseProtocols [All] [CUPS] [DNSSD] [LDAP] [SLP]
        Specifies the protocols to use for printer browsing.
    and other options control this.
You can also point client systems at a specific server via configuration 
in /etc/cups/client.conf

    -Norm

Larry wrote:
> I work in an environment that contains only networked printers and we push  the printers.conf out via NIS maps.  I've been told that I need to install CUPS on our UNIX servers but I'm wondering how using CUPS in this environment will make life easier.
>   
Because CUPS supports several dynamic methods of advertising it's 
queues, depending on how you configure things, you can share available 
print queues without the need for manual update and push of a central 
name service map.
> Does CUPS eliminate the need of having a centralized print server by allowing each server to discover printers (if configured to do so, of course)
It can, though discovering actual printers requires creation of a print 
queue to use it.  Those queues can be advertised/discovered automatically.
> can we establish a print server or two to which all other servers point (using CUPS)?
>   
You can