Re: Need help with CUPS printing
On Sunday 29 March 2015 05:22:19 deloptes wrote:
> Paul E Condon wrote:
> > I'm running Jessie, as close to plain vanilla as my hardware allows.
> > I have a HP Laserjet 5MP. This is an ancient device. It has built-in
> > firmware for Level 2 Postscript printing and a special socket for
> > Apple Localtalk connection, but no USB. It is a sturdy old beast and
> > was running nicely until quite recently. But in a special
> > configuration that needs to be understood in order to give help:
> >
> > My main desktop computer on which I receive email, and create my own
> > documents has *only* USB. I bought a special cable that has a USB to
> > Centronics conversion dongle at one end. But I can't use it because
> > the socket for Centronics on the printer is in recessed place in the
> > printer where the dongle won't fit and I can't enlarge the place
> > without sawing away parts of the printer framework that are
> > necessary for the paper feed system to work. So, instead, I put into
> > service an old micro-mini Dell (now running Jessie) and put CUPS on
> > it, and configured it to be a print server. But all this was well
> > before I had any idea that there would ever be anything like Jessie
> > in my future. At first, after some fiddling, the print server worked
> > under Jessie, but now it has stopped working. The printer continues
> > to produce test pages when requesting them from the old Dell
> > keyboard and in self-test mode by pushing buttons on the printer
> > itself, not by typing at the computer keyboard.
> >
> > After installing the most recent upgrades to Jessie on both
> > computers this morning, I tried to print a few pages from iceweasel
> > and printing worked. But I also want to be able to print from Emacs,
> > which I use to compose my emails, such as this one. Emacs told be
> > that there was no default printer even though I had just selected
> > the printer on the old Dell from a pick-list presented to be by the
> > print user interface presented to me by the Emacs user interface. I
> > think I should configure the Cups server on my desktop computer to
> > indicate that that printer over on the old Dell is the one for
> > Emacs. But how do I do that?
> >
> > I can't trust my own investigations to determine if there have been
> > any recent changes in the Jessie CUPS packages in the recent past. I
> > know there was a new version of CUPS at the time that Jessie entered
> > pre-release freeze, and I pretty sure my system was working then and
> > not something that I lost in my transition from Wheezy. And, of
> > course, I'd like a more foreword looking suggestion than to
> > re-install Wheezy. I'd like this fixed before Jessie release because
> > I have a bad feeling that the longer I wait the further from the
> > main-stream I will be. I need, with my old hardware, to be as close
> > to the middle of the herd of users as I can be.
> >
> > The print driver for the HPLj-5MP that I have been using in recent
> > years is the one with (recommended) in its listing in the pick-list
> > of all HP print drivers in the localhost:631 web site on both
> > computers. Beyond that I can't think of anything people might need
> > to know about my set-up. I'd be glad to answer any questions about
> > things that I haven't realized might be important.
> >
> > Please help
>
> Hi
> long mails are not easy to read and understand. Most important is the
> quality of information in it ... like model number or chipset in the
> hardware you use etc.
>
> I had similar experience with usb2parallel cable. Actually I am using
> 2 old printers with 2 different cables. The one does not have an
> issue. The other does and since upgrade to wheezy and later to jessie.
> I had to fix the same issue for the worse cable, where the chip does
> not communicate the proper port to the system. The solution was to
> update printers.conf manually and put there
> DeviceURI parallel:/dev/usb/lp0
> or whatever port your cable is using
>
> For the other issue how - that you can not connect the cable to the
> printer - use parallel port cable extention.
>
> I hope this helps
>
> regards
I am getting the impression that the overall install on both doesn't have
the correct Browsing options set, from this machine which serves all
available printers to the rest of the machines on my local network (I am
behind a router running dd.wrt so its pretty wide open here, with all
addresses set in host files at an not well used class c address in the
192.168 class B block. security by obscurity and NAT rules in the
router).
The Browsing section of the cupsd.conf of this machine:
(comments excised for some reason unk to me)
LogLevel warn
SystemGroup lpadmin root gene
Group sys gene
User lp gene
Port 631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock
Browsing On
BrowseOrder allow,deny
BrowseAllow all
BrowseRemoteProtocols CUPS
BrowseAddress @LOCAL
BrowseLocalProtocols CUPS dnssd
DefaultAuthType Basic
And from one of the machines that can use the printers attached here just
as if they were local to that machine:
# for troubleshooting...
LogLevel warn
# Deactivate CUPS' internal logrotating, as we provide a better one,
especially
# LogLevel debug2 gets usable now
MaxLogSize 0
# Administrator user group...
SystemGroup lpadmin gene
# Only listen for connections from the local machine.
Listen localhost:631
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock
# Show shared printers on the local network.
Browsing On
BrowseOrder allow,deny
BrowseAllow all
BrowseLocalProtocols CUPS dnssd
BrowseAddress @LOCAL
# Default authentication type, when authentication is required...
DefaultAuthType Basic
====
One of my printers has an ethernet port and is a bit faster if I use it,
hence the dnssd addition in the Protocols.
The critical section to check would seem to be the "Browsing..."
By default, this is not enabled but "Off", and you also need to check
the "share" box when configuring a printer on the Dell server. That
also is defaulted to off. But Mike sets that stuff "0ff" because he
hasn't a clue how you are connected to the net. Those settings above
would leave you wide open to the world if the local switch was connected
directly to the modem, using the dhcp obtained addresses not in the do
not relay blocks of the ipv4 address space.
Network configuration is a major can of worms, about which whole books
have been written, filled with Three Letter Acronyms (TLA's) for this
and that obscure details. By using hosts files in @LOCAL addresses, I
get to skip most of those sweaty details. However, default installs put
in stuff not needed that will try to override your settings, requiring
one to resort to root sessions of editing and immediate chattr +i to the
right files in order to lock a working setups config in a working
condition, Network-Mangler refuses to recognize a working setup and will
tear it down about 30 seconds after a bootup, never to be able to ping
yahoo.com (or one of the other machines on your local net) again. To say
that its maddening when trying to get a new install setup is a top
candidate for the understatement of the century.
But I have also been labeled as the black sheep of the family here for
not doing it debians way. But my way Just Works(TM) until the next bare
metal install, which starts the 3 ring circus of getting networking to
actually work again... And with dd-wrt watching the front door, I sleep
well at night, for an 80yo diabetic who has to recycle his water 3x a
night. :)
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
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