On Thu, 2008-02-21 at 14:23 +1100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> The printer is a Lexmark c532dn and I'm runninf Gutsy G on a laptop.
>
> I'd like to connent it to a network, but the installation programs I've
> consulted don't mention it.
>
> Someone suggested CUPS.
>
> Has anyone any experience with this model?
Looking at the specs it is a fairly standard PostScript
printer with a ethernet port.
ATTACH THE PRINTER, GIVE IT A NAME AND ADDRESS
The first thing to do is to plug it into the ethernet.
Your DHCP server will give it an address and print its
ethernet MAC address in the log file.
DHCPDISCOVER from 00:12:34:12:34:56 via eth0
Since it's useful for printers to have a fixed name
enter one in /etc/dhcpd.conf
host lexmark-c523dn-1 {
hardware ethernet 00:12:34:12:34:56;
option host-name "lexmark-c523dn-1";
option domain-name "printers.example.edu.au";
ddns-hostname "lexmark-c523dn-1";
ddns-domainname "printers.example.edu.au";
}
If you don't run Dynamic DNS then do it the old fashioned
way by giving it a fixed IP address in DHCP
host lexmark-c523dn-1 {
hardware ethernet 00:12:34:12:34:56;
option host-name "lexmark-c523dn-1";
option domain-name "printers.example.edu.au";
fixed-address 1.2.3.4;
}
and manually updating your DNS zones
lexmark-c523dn-1.printers.example.edu.au. IN A 1.2.3.4
in-addr.arpa.4.3.2.1. IN PTR lexmark-c523dn-1.printers.example.edu.au.
You might want to add
option ntp-servers 1.2.3.1;
option log-servers 1.2.3.2;
as this will put the right time on the printer and send any messages
to your site's syslog server so you can see what happened when things
go wrong.
Now restart the printer and it will pick up its new address
and name.
Although this is a lot of messing about, avoiding configuring the
IP address onto the printer manually is well worth the hassle.
Using DHCP as widely as possible makes network changes later
on much more simple. Using DHCP with DDNS makes life very,
very simple.
CONFIGURE PRINT QUEUE
Configure the printer into CUPS. There's some nice GUIs for
this. I really recommend using the GUI interface, then
checking the configuration file afterwards. You see
something like this in /etc/cups/printers.conf
<DefaultPrinter lexmark-c523dn-1>
Info Lexmark C532dn colour laser printer
Location Room 101
DeviceURI ipp://lexmark-c523dn-1.printers.example.edu.au/ipp/port1
...
</Printer>
I really recommend using the GUI interface, then checking the
configuration file afterwards.
If the printer isn't in the GUI then select the Generic Postscript
option and say you have a .PPD file. A PPD is a printer description
file and it tells CUPS and other programs about the printer's
capabilities.
Look on linuxprinting.org for a PPD file. If there isn't one then
look on the CD that came with the printer and look for a .PPD file
there. You may need to use cabextract or unshield to explode
installer data files. Some Windows PostScript drivers use PPD
files, so there will be one somewhere.
Linux has excellent support for PostScript printers. You'll be
very pleased with the results.
PRINTERS FOR SMALL BUSINESS
If you have an office, rather than just one computer, then set
up a VLAN just for printers, say VLAN 10 with addresses 10.10.10.*/24.
Put an interface of the CUPS server on this VLAN and another interface
of that server on the routed network of your office. Now users
can only see the CUPS queues -- this is a good thing.
The CUPS server will advertise all the printers it knows of, and
Linux and MacOS X users need no configuration to use the printer.
You can gateway CUPS into Samba. Do this at the CUPS server.
The Samba server can contain the Windows printer drivers too,
so visitors with Windows machines can easily use your printer
too.
The printers cannot be contacted directly from the office network
or from the Internet. This means you don't need to worry if
the printer software has a vulnerability (and a lot of then do).
The CUPS server is acting as an application-specific firewall
for the printers.
--
Glen Turner <http://www.gdt.id.au/~gdt/>
0416 295 857 or +61 416 295 857
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
