[plug] Samba printing problems

[Michael Hunt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-plug at linux.org.au [mailto:owner-plug at linux.org.au]On Behalf
> Of brian coleman
> Sent: Thursday, 13 May 1999 21:41
> To: plug at linux.org.au
> Subject: RE: [plug] Samba printing problems
>
>
> 1. The printer set up in version 2 of Samba has added a number of new
> printer options. Suggest what you both do is to use swat to have
> a look at
> them. The can be accessed by the advanced view from within the
> global menu
> option.
>
> 2.  "lpstat" especially /usr/bin/lpstat is very much part of Sys V UNIX
> printing systems and is a binary status module rather than a text file.
>
> 3. As an easy way out if you set up a raw queue to your printer (you can
> have more than one queue accessing a single printer) and then point your
> Windoze printer to that queue but print to the queue using the Windoze
> drivers for your printer instead of whatever you are currently using.
>
> 4. Just as a matter of interest have you checked to see if the
> filters you
> are using have changed between the 2 RedHat releases?
>
> Brian C.

Well I have fixed the problem by doing the following (I don't know which
thing actually fixes it but it is working now)

1. Added the line printcap name = /etc/printcap to the [global] section
ofsmb.conf.

2. Added the following lines to the [printer] and [lphpdj01] section
ofsmb.conf.

	guest ok = Yes
	print command = /usr/bin/lpr -b -P%p %s
	lpq command = /usr/bin/lpq -P%p
	lprm command = /usr/bin/lprm -P%p %j

Now I know that the first command didn't make any difference by itself but I
decided to leave it in anyway. (The lpq command was set by default to lpstat
something on my system which doesn't exist and when I tried just this change
it still exhibited the same problems). I think maybe the version 2.0.3 that
I got from samba.org (for use with my 5.2 system) may have had different
compile options than the one that I got with my RedHat distro. A couple of
questions/points maybe.

1. I didn't think that the lpstat file would be a text file (given its
location) but not knowing what it was (and not be able to find much info on
it) I thought I would check with some more knowledgable types. Does anyone
know why this file might be missing on my install (its a clean one so I have
to conclude that it is not in the distro). Do I really need it now ?

2. I found the above lines in a Printing.txt file in
/usr/doc/samba_2.0.3/textdocs (I think). I only added the full path because
it said that it might not be able to find the binaries.  It also gave the
example of a raw printer as Brian pointed out, however I never had to do
this before (does this sound like a user complaint to tech sup or what !!!).
It works beautifully know using an installed HP windows driver on the 98
machine printing directly to the network port \\myserver_name\lphpdj01.
Excuse my lack of knowledge about postscript and filters etc but what
benefit is there in setting it up as raw (hey it works why break it !!!!) By
the way I was not getting anything to the /var/spool/samba/.

Well thanks everyone for the help so far. I hope my findings here can maybe
help someone else along the way.