doc/help/sharing.html

   1 <html>
   2 <!-- SECTION: Getting Started -->
   3 <head>
   4         <title>Printer Sharing</title>
   5 </head>
   6 <body>
   7
   8 <p>This document discusses several ways to configure printer sharing.</p>
   9
  10 <h2><a name="BASICS">The Basics</h2>
  11
  12 <p>A "server" is any machine that communicates directly to a printer. A "client"
  13 is any machine that sends print jobs to a server for final printing. Clients can
  14 also be servers if they communicate directly with any printers of their own.</p>
  15
  16 <p>By default, CUPS uses the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) to send jobs from
  17 a client to a server. When printing to legacy print servers you may also use the
  18 Line Printer Daemon (LPD) when printing to older UNIX-based servers or Server
  19 Message Block (SMB) when printing to Windows<sup>&reg;</sup> servers.</p>
  20
  21 <p>Clients can automatically discover and access shared printers via CUPS
  22 browsing, IPP, Service Location Protocol (SLP), and Lightweight Directory Access
  23 Protocol (LDAP). DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD a.k.a. Bonjour<sup>&reg;</sup>)
  24 and SMB browsing can also be used to manually discover and access shared
  25 printers.</p>
  26
  27
  28 <h2><a name="SERVER_CONFIG">Configuring the Server</a></h2>
  29
  30 <p>You must enable printer sharing on the server before clients can print
  31 through it. The simplest way to do this is to use the
  32 <a href="man-cupsctl.html">cupsctl(8)</a> command on the server:</p>
  33
  34 <pre class="command">
  35 cupsctl --share-printers
  36 </pre>
  37
  38 <p>By default, the above command will allow printing from other clients on the
  39 same subnet as your server. To allow printing from any subnet, use the following
  40 command instead:</p>
  41
  42 <pre class="command">
  43 cupsctl --share-printers --remote-any
  44 </pre>
  45
  46 <p>Next, you need to choose which protocols to use for printer sharing. The
  47 default is CUPS browsing and DNS-SD on Mac OS X and CUPS browsing alone on
  48 other platforms. To set the sharing protocols, run the <b>cupsctl</b> command
  49 to set the
  50 <a href="ref-cupsd-conf.html#BrowseLocalProtocols">BrowseLocalProtocols</a>
  51 value. For example, run the following command to allow shared printing via
  52 CUPS, DNS-SD, LPD, and SMB:</p>
  53
  54 <pre class="command">
  55 cupsctl 'BrowseLocalProtocols="cups dnssd lpd smb"'
  56 </pre>
  57
  58
  59 <h2><a name="AUTO_CUPS">Automatic Configuration using CUPS Browsing</a></h2>
  60
  61 <p>CUPS browsing works by periodically broadcasting information about printers
  62 that are being shared to client systems on the same subnet. Each client
  63 maintains its own list of shared printers, and when more than one server shares
  64 the same printer (or the same kind of printer) the client uses all of the
  65 servers and printers to provide high-availability and failsafe printing.</p>
  66
  67 <p>To configure printers on the same subnet, <em>do nothing</em>. Each client
  68 should see the available printers within 30 seconds automatically. The printer
  69 and class lists are updated automatically as printers and servers are added or
  70 removed.</p>
  71
  72 <blockquote><b>Note:</b>
  73
  74 <p>Due to user interface changes in Mac OS X 10.5, CUPS shared printers will not
  75 automatically appear in the print dialog. Instead, you must first run the
  76 following command to enable CUPS browsing on your system:</p>
  77
  78 <pre class="command">
  79 cupsctl BrowseRemoteProtocols=cups
  80 </pre>
  81
  82 <p>Then choose each of the CUPS shared printers you want to see in the print
  83 dialog by adding them, either from the <var>Add Printer...</var> item in the
  84 print dialog or from the <var>Print &amp; Fax</var> preference pane in the
  85 <var>System Preferences</var> window.</p>
  86
  87 </blockquote>
  88
  89 <h3><a name="BROWSE_POLL">Seeing Printers on Other Subnets</a></h3>
  90
  91 <p>You can automatically access printers on other subnets by adding
  92 <a href="ref-cupsd-conf.html#BrowsePoll"><code>BrowsePoll</code></a> lines
  93 to the <var>cupsd.conf</var> file on your local system. For a single
  94 server you can use the <b>cupsctl</b> command:</p>
  95
  96 <pre class="command">
  97 cupsctl BrowsePoll=server:port
  98 </pre>
  99
 100 <p>For multiple servers, use the CUPS web interface (http://localhost:631/admin)
 101 to edit the configuration file instead. Enter one <code>BrowsePoll</code> line
 102 per server at the bottom of the file, as follows:</p>
 103
 104 <pre class="example">
 105 BrowsePoll server1:port
 106 BrowsePoll server2:port
 107 BrowsePoll server3:port
 108 </pre>
 109
 110 <p>If you have more than one client on your subnet that wants to see the
 111 printers on those servers, add a
 112 <a href="ref-cupsd-conf.html#BrowseRelay"><code>BrowseRely</code></a> line
 113 to the <var>cupsd.conf</var> file on your local system using the <b>cupsctl</b>
 114 command:</p>
 115
 116 <pre class="command">
 117 cupsctl 'BrowseRelay="127.0.0.1 @LOCAL"'
 118 </pre>
 119
 120 <p>or CUPS web interface (again, at the bottom of the file):</p>
 121
 122 <pre class="example">
 123 BrowseRelay 127.0.0.1 @LOCAL
 124 </pre>
 125
 126
 127 <h2><a name="AUTO_IPP">Automatic Configuration using IPP</a></h2>
 128
 129 <p>CUPS can be configured to run without a local spooler and send all jobs to a
 130 single server. However, if that server goes down then all printing will be
 131 disabled. Use this configuration only as absolutely necessary.</p>
 132
 133 <p>The default server is normally the local system ("localhost"). To override
 134 the default server create a file named <var>/etc/cups/client.conf</var> with a
 135 line as follows:</p>
 136
 137 <pre class='example'>
 138 ServerName <em>server</em>
 139 </pre>
 140
 141 <p>The <var>server</var> name can be the hostname or IP address of the default
 142 server. If the server is not using the default IPP port (631), you can add the
 143 port number at the end like this:</p>
 144
 145 <pre class='example'>
 146 ServerName <em>server:port</em>
 147 </pre>
 148
 149 <p>The default server can also be customized on a per-user basis. To set a
 150 user-specific server create a file named <var>~/.cups/client.conf</var> instead.
 151 The user <var>client.conf</var> file takes precedence over the system one.</p>
 152
 153 <p>Finally, you can set the <code>CUPS_SERVER</code> environment variable to
 154 override the default server for a single process, for example:</p>
 155
 156 <pre class='command'>
 157 CUPS_SERVER=server:port firefox http://www.cups.org
 158 </pre>
 159
 160 <p>will run the Firefox web browser pointed to the specified server and
 161 port. The environment variable overrides both the user and system
 162 <var>client.conf</var> files, if any.</p>
 163
 164
 165 <h2><a name="MANUAL">Manual Configuration of Print Queues</a></h2>
 166
 167 <p>The most tedious method of configuring client machines is to configure
 168 each remote queue by hand using the <a href="man-lpadmin.html">lpadmin(8)</a>
 169 command:</p>
 170
 171 <pre class='command'>
 172 lpadmin -p <em>printer</em> -E -v ipp://<em>server</em>/printers/<em>printer</em>
 173 </pre>
 174
 175 <p>The <var>printer</var> name is the name of the printer on the server machine.
 176 The <var>server</var> name is the hostname or IP address of the server machine.
 177 Repeat the <b>lpadmin</b> command for each remote printer you wish to use.</p>
 178
 179
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