 
Subject
If you're using a samba server to provide print services to Windows
clients, why not take it one step further by offering point and print
functionality. If you set this up, users *might* even be able to install
printers themselves! At the very least it will save you time when you
slave over their workstations and laptops.
This article assumes you already have samba running and
set up to serve at least one printer. It also assumes that you
are using user level security for access control. (security = user
in smb.conf.)
First, you need to add a share to smb.conf. On our Red Hat system
it's installed in /etc/samba. The share must be named print$ -
that is where the Windows clients will look for print drivers. It
should be set up like so:
[print$]
#dir for print drivers
path = /share/printers
guest ok = yes
browseable = yes
read only = yes
#members of sys group wheel can install drivers
write list = @wheel
printer admin = @wheel
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Just for good measure, we also added the following line to our printers
share:
OK, now create the actual directory. It requires some special subdirectories for the drivers:
[root@bigdaddy share]# ls -ld printers/
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 4096 Apr 23 14:18 printers/
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Note the directory is readable and writable by the system group wheel,
which has printer admin and write privileges on the share.
Under the printers dir, we need to create a subdirectory for each
platform we're installing drivers for. In our environment, there's
only Windows 2000 on i386 so:
[root@bigdaddy share]# ls -l printers/
total 4
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 4096 Apr 24 13:46 W32X86
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Now, log in to a Windows system and browse to the samba server,
connecting as a user who is on the printer admin list on the server.
Open up the "Printers" folder on the server. Right click on the
printer you want to install drivers for, choose Properties.
The following dialog box will pop up:
Click No.
go to the "Advanced" tab:
Click the "New Driver" button.
Install the driver from Windows media, printer disk, or whatever. We
installed from a network drive where we keep the print drivers.
Errors related to permissions are most common, so make sure the user
you are connecting as from your Windows workstation is a printer
admin, and the users you've defined as printer admins have
write permission on the print$ share directory. In our case we've used
the system group "wheel" to define the printer admins. Also,
if you are using "share" level security, none of this access
control will work, even if you set the permissions on the $print
share directory wide open for the whole world. That is because
samba also updates some databases in /var/cache/samba (on redhat)
and will only allow users defined as printer admins to do so. You
will get errors telling you the media is write protected.
Screenshot of Successfully Installing Print Driver
Also, don't forget to click "Apply" when you're back in the
Properties/Advanced screen after the driver's installed!
On your samba server, you should see some new stuff in the
print share directory. Ours looks like this as a result of
installing the NT/W2K drivers for an HP LaserJet 1100:
[root@bigdaddy printers]# ls -l /share/printers/W32X86/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 2 usr-3 usr-3 4096 Apr 24 17:08 3
[root@bigdaddy printers]# ls -al /share/printers/W32X86/3
total 3900
drwxr-xr-x 2 usr-3 usr-3 4096 Apr 24 17:08 .
drwxrwxr-x 3 root wheel 4096 Apr 24 17:24 ..
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 45056 May 4 2001 HPBAFD32.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 8464 May 5 2001 HPBF201E.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 108304 May 5 2001 HPBF201F.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 1417488 May 5 2001 HPBF201G.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 1096464 May 5 2001 HPBF201H.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 349968 May 5 2001 HPBF201I.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 46489 Mar 30 2001 HPBF201I.HLP
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 46914 May 5 2001 HPBF201I.PMD
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 185104 May 5 2001 HPBF201J.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 460800 May 5 2001 HPBF201K.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 99840 Mar 30 2001 HPBFTM32.DLL
-rwxr--r-- 1 usr-3 usr-3 58880 Mar 30 2001 HPDCMON.DLL
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Now you can go to your workstation and install the printer by
a simple 5 step process:
1. Double click add printer.
2. Choose Network Printer
3. Browse to or type in the name of \\server\printer.
4. Select whether you want this printer to be default.
5. Click Finish.
This is a great way to add functionality to your samba server,
and make life easier for the masses and the technical
elite alike.
A great collection of samba howto documents:
Samba-HOWTO-Collection.pdf
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