Printers sharing service

In order to share a printer in our network, allowing or denying users and groups the access to it, we need to have access to that printer from a host running eBox. This can be done through: direct connection, i.e., with a USB [1] or parallel port, or through the local network. Besides that, if we want to obtain good results on its operation, we will need to know certain information regarding the manufacturer, the model and the driver of the printer. Printers can be added going to Printers ‣ Add printer. Once there, you will be asked to enter all the necessary details in a wizard.

[1]	Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a serial bus standard to connect devices to a host computer.

First of all, we need to name the printer and to establish a connection method for it. The following methods are currently supported by eBox:

Parallel port:

A physical printer connected to the eBox server using parallel port.

USB:

A physical printer connected to the eBox server using USB

AppSocket:

A remote printer that uses the AppSocket protocol, also known as JetDirect.

IPP:

A remote printer that uses the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) [2].

LPD:

A remote printer that uses the Line Printer Daemon protocol (LPD) [3].

Samba:

A remote printer shared through Samba or Windows printer sharing.

[2]	Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) is a standard network protocol for remote printing as well as for managing print jobs, media size, resolution, and so forth. More information available on RFC 2910.

[3]	Line Printer Daemon protocol (LPD) is a set of programs that provide printer spooling and network printer server functionality for Unix-like systems. More information available on RFC 1179.

We will need to configure the connection parameters according to the selected method. For example, if we have a network printer, we will have to set up an IP address and a listening port as the following figure shows:

In the next four steps we will configure the printer driver that eBox needs to use in order to send the jobs to be printed out, defining: the manufacturer, the model, the printer driver as well as other settings.

After these steps, the printer will be configured. Now you will be able to see not only the queued printing jobs but also the ones in progress. In addition to that, you can also modify any of the parameters already introduced in the wizard going to Printers ‣ Manage printers.

The printers managed by eBox are accessible using the Samba protocol. You can also enable the printing daemon CUPS in order to share the printers using IPP too.

[4]	Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) is a modular printing system for Unix systems that allows a machine to act as a printing server, thus being able to accept printing jobs, process them and forward them to the appropriate printer.

Once the service is enabled and you have saved changes, you can give access to the resources editing either the group or the user (Groups ‣ Edit Group ‣ Printers or Users ‣ Edit User ‣ Printers).