[cups] CUPS + VPN

[Douglas Kosovic]

Hi Lisa,


We have multiple VLANs and VPN with about 150 printers. I found it simpler for our linux CUPs users to just add the individual print queues they want by doing something like the following (which doesn't need Browse Poll or Bonjour) :

1. Issue the following on the command-line :
   /usr/bin/system-config-printer &

2. Server menu > New > Printer.

3. Expand "Network Printer", click Find Network Printer, enter printserver.example.com for the host address and then click the Find button.

4. In the Connections scrolling list, select your desired print queue and then click the Forward button.

5. In the Printer Name text field, rename the print queue appropriately.

We don't use /etc/cups/client.conf.

For the Mac and iOS CUPS clients over the various VLANs and VPN, we use Wide Area Bonjour.


Cheers,
Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: cups-bounces at cups.org [mailto:cups-bounces at cups.org] On Behalf Of Lisa Marie Maginnis
Sent: Thursday, 15 October 2015 4:32 AM
To: cups at cups.org
Subject: [cups] CUPS + VPN

Hello,

We are having issues with CUPS and shared printers over our VPN. The issue is that if a user is not on the VPN when CUPS starts, they are unable to see printers until they restart CUPS by hand. It crossed my mind to add a restart of CUPS to the scripts that run when a client connects to the VPN, but I wanted to ask around to see if there is a CUPS only solution to try first.

Clients are configured by adding the following line to /etc/cups/client.conf:
ServerName printserver.example.com

Is there a way to increase the polling time of the remote cups server? Or maybe a better way to configure CUPS clients for using a remote cups server that might not be there when the system first boots?

Thanks!

-- 
~Lisa Marie Maginnis
Senior System Administrator
Free Software Foundation
http://fsf.org http://gnu.org
GPG Key: 61EEC710