# CUPS/Printer sharing

< CUPS

Related articles

- Samba
- CUPS

This article contains instruction on sharing printers between systems, be it between two GNU/Linux systems or between a GNU/Linux system and Microsoft Windows.

## Between GNU/Linux systems

The server can be configured using either the web interface or by manually editing `/etc/cups/cupsd.conf`. To configure the client, see CUPS#Remote CUPS servers.

### Using the web interface

Open up the web interface to the server, select the Administration tab, look under the Server heading, and enable the "Share printers connected to this system" option. Save your change by clicking on the Change Settings button. The server will automatically restart.

For more complex configurations, you can directly edit the `/etc/cups/cupsd.conf` file by selecting Edit Configuration File. See #Manual setup for more information.

### Manual setup

On the server computer (the one directly connected to the printer), allow access to the server by modifying the location directive. For instance:

    /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

    <Location />
        Order allow,deny
        Allow localhost
        Allow 192.168.0.*
    </Location>
    ...

Also make sure the server is listening on the IP address the client will use:

    /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

    ...
    Listen <hostname>:631
    ...

There are more configuration possibilities, including automatic methods, which are described in detail in Using Network Printers.

After making any modifications, restart CUPS.

If CUPS is started using socket activation, create a drop-in snippet for `org.cups.cupsd.socket` so that socket activation also works for remote connections:

    /etc/systemd/system/org.cups.cupsd.socket.d/override.conf

    [Socket]
    ListenStream=631

### Enabling browsing

To enable browsing (shared printer discovery), Avahi must be installed and running on the server. If you do not need printer discovery, Avahi is not required on either the server or the client.

Note: Browsing will only work if Avahi is running before cupsd is started

To enable browsing, either select Share printers connected to this system in the web interface, or manually turn on Browsing and set the BrowseAddress:

    /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

    ...
    Browsing On
    BrowseAddress 192.168.0.*:631
    ...

## Between GNU/Linux and Windows

### Linux server - Windows client

#### Sharing via IPP

The preferred way to connect a Windows client to a Linux print server is using IPP. It is a standard printer protocol based on HTTP, allowing you all ways to profit from port forwarding, tunneling etc. The configuration is very easy and this way is less error-prone than using Samba. IPP is natively supported by Windows since Windows 2000.

Note: You may have to add the Internet Printing Client to Windows (Control Panel->Programs->Turn Windows features on or off->Print and Document Services)

First, configure the server as described in the section #Between GNU/Linux systems.

On the Windows computer, go to Control Panel->Devices and Printers and choose to 'Add a printer'. Next, choose 'Select a shared printer by name' and type in the location of the printer:

    http://hostname:631/printers/printer_name

(where hostname is the GNU/Linux server's hostname or IP address and printer_name is the name of the printer being connected to. You can also use the server's fully qualified domain name, if it has one, but you may need to set `ServerAlias my_fully_qualified_domain_name` in cupsd.conf for this to work).

Note: The 'Add Printer' dialog in Windows is sensitive about the path. The dialogue box suggests the format `http://computername/printers/printername/.printer`, which it will not accept. Instead, use the syntax suggested above.
Note: If you are using proxy - check used proxy exclusions twice - it may result in failing to add a printer until reboot even if you will disable proxy at all afterwards (actual for Windows 7).

After this, install the native printer drivers for your printer on the Windows computer. If the CUPS server is set up to use its own printer drivers, then you can just select a generic postscript printer for the Windows client(e.g. 'HP Color LaserJet 8500 PS' or 'Xerox DocuTech 135 PS2'). Then test the print setup by printing a test page.

#### Sharing via Samba

If your client's Windows version is below Windows 2000 or if you experienced troubles with IPP you can also use Samba for sharing. Note of course that with Samba this involves another complex piece of software. This makes this way more difficult to configure and thus sometimes also more error-prone, mostly due to authentication problems.

To configure Samba on the Linux server, edit `/etc/samba/smb.conf` file to allow access to printers. File `smb.conf` can look something like this:

    /etc/samba/smb.conf

    [global]
    workgroup=Heroes
    server string=Arch Linux Print Server
    security=user

    [printers]
        comment=All Printers
        path=/var/spool/samba
        browseable=yes
        # to allow user 'guest account' to print.
        guest ok=no
        writable=no
        printable=yes
        create mode=0700
        write list=@adm root yourusername

That should be enough to share the printer, yet adding an individual printer entry may be desirable:

    /etc/samba/smb.conf

    [ML1250]
        comment=Samsung ML-1250 Laser Printer
        printer=ml1250
        path=/var/spool/samba
        printing=cups
        printable=yes
        printer admin=@admin root yourusername
        user client driver=yes
        # to allow user 'guest account' to print.
        guest ok=no
        writable=no
        write list=@adm root yourusername
        valid users=@adm root yourusername

Please note that this assumes configuration was made so that users must have a valid account to access the printer. To have a public printer, set guest ok to yes, and remove the valid users line. To add accounts, set up a regular GNU/Linux account and then set up a Samba password on the server. For instance:

    # useradd yourusername
    # smbpasswd -a yourusername

After this, restart the Samba daemon.

Obviously, there are a lot of tweaks and customizations that can be done with setting up a Samba print server, so it is advised to look at the Samba and CUPS documentation for more help. The `smb.conf.example` file also has some good samples that might warrant imitating.

### Windows server - Linux client

Warning: Any special characters in the printer URIs need to be appropriately quoted, or, if your Windows printer name or user passwords have spaces, CUPS will throw a "lpadmin: Bad device-uri" error.

For example: `smb://BEN-DESKTOP/HP Color LaserJet CP1510 series PCL6`

becomes:

`smb://BEN-DESKTOP/HP%20Color%20LaserJet%20CP1510%20series%20PCL6`

This result string can be obtained by running the following command:

    $ python2 -c 'import urllib; print "smb://" + urllib.quote("BEN-DESKTOP/HP Color LaserJet CP1510 series PCL6")'

#### Sharing via LPD

Windows 7 has a built-in LPD server - using it will probably be the easiest approach as it does neither require an installation of Samba on the client nor heavy configuration on the server. It can be activated in the Control Panel under Programs -> Activate Windows functions in the section Print services. The printer must have shared activated in its properties. Use a share name without any special characters like spaces, commas, etc.

Then the printer can be added in CUPS, choosing LPD protocol. The printer address will look like this:

    # lpd://windowspc/printersharename

Before adding the printer, you will most likely have to install an appropriate printer driver depending on your printer model. Generic PostScript or RAW drivers might also work.

#### Sharing via IPP

As above, IPP is also the preferred protocol for printer sharing. However this way might be a bit more difficult than the native Samba approach below, since you need a greater effort to set up an IPP-Server on Windows. The commonly chosen server software is Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS).

Note: This section is incomplete. Here is a description how to set up IIS in Windows XP and Windows 2000, unfortunately in German [1]

#### Sharing via Samba

A much simpler way is using Window's native printer sharing via Samba. There is almost no configuration needed, and all of it can be done from the CUPS Backend. As above noted, if there are any problems the reason is mostly related to authentication trouble and Windows access restrictions.

On the server side enable sharing for your desired printer and ensure that the user on the client machine has the right to access the printer.

The following section describes how to set up the client, assuming that both daemons (cupsd and smbd) are running.

##### Configuration using the web interface

The Samba CUPS back-end is enabled by default, if for any reason it is not activate it by entering the following command and restarting CUPS.

    # ln -s $(which smbspool) /usr/lib/cups/backend/smb

Next, simply log in on the CUPS web interface and choose to add a new printer. As a device choose "Windows Printer via SAMBA".

For the device location, enter:

    smb://username:password@hostname/printer_name

Or without a password:

    smb://username@hostname/printer_name

Make sure that the user actually has access to the printer on the Windows computer and select the appropriate drivers. If the computer is located on a domain, make sure the URI includes the domain:

    smb://username:password@domain/hostname/printer_name

##### Manual configuration

The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.

Reason: This should probably use lpadmin instead of editing the config file (Discuss in Talk:CUPS/Printer sharing#)

For manual configuration stop the CUPS daemon and add your printer to `/etc/cups/printers.conf`, which might for example look like this

    /etc/cups/printers.conf

    <DefaultPrinter MyPrinter>
    AuthInfoRequired username,password
    Info My printer via SAMBA
    Location In my Office
    MakeModel Samsung ML-1250 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.7        # <= use 'lpinfo -m' to list available models
    DeviceURI smb://username:password@hostname/printer_name   # <= server URI as described in previous section
    State Idle
    Type 4
    Accepting Yes
    Shared No
    JobSheets none none
    QuotaPeriod 0
    PageLimit 0
    KLimit 0
    AllowUser yourusername                                    # <= do not forget to change this
    OpPolicy default
    ErrorPolicy stop-printer
    </Printer>

Then restart the CUPS daemon and try to print a test page.

##### Finding URIs for Windows print servers

Sometimes Windows is a little less than forthcoming about exact device URIs (device locations). If having trouble specifying the correct device location in CUPS, run the following command to list all shares available to a certain windows username:

    $ smbtree -U windowsusername

This will list every share available to a certain Windows username on the local area network subnet, as long as Samba is set up and running properly. It should return something like this:

     WORKGROUP
    	\\REGULATOR-PC
    		\\REGULATOR-PC\Z
    		\\REGULATOR-PC\Public
    		\\REGULATOR-PC\print$         	Printer Drivers
    		\\REGULATOR-PC\G
    		\\REGULATOR-PC\EPSON Stylus CX8400 Series	EPSON Stylus CX8400 Series

What is needed here is first part of the last line, the resource matching the printer description. So to print to the EPSON Stylus printer, one would enter:

    smb://username.password@REGULATOR-PC/EPSON Stylus CX8400 Series

as the URI into CUPS.

## Remote administration

Once the server is set up as described in #Between GNU/Linux systems, it can also be configured so that it can be remotely administered. Add the allowed hosts to the `<Location /admin>` block in `/etc/cups/cupsd.conf`, using the same syntax as described in #Manual setup. Note that three levels of access can be granted:

    <Location />           #access to the server
    <Location /admin>	#access to the admin pages
    <Location /admin/conf>	#access to configuration files

To give remote hosts access to one of these levels, add an `Allow` statement to that level's section. An `Allow` statement can take one or more of the forms listed below:

    Allow from all
    Allow from host.domain.com
    Allow from *.domain.com
    Allow from ip-address
    Allow from ip-address/netmask
    Allow from @LOCAL

Deny statements can also be used. For example, to give full access to all hosts on your local network interfaces, edit `/etc/cups/cupsd.conf` to include this:

    # Restrict access to the server...
    # By default only localhost connections are possible
    <Location />
       Order allow,deny
       Allow from @LOCAL
    </Location>

    # Restrict access to the admin pages...
    <Location /admin>
       Order allow,deny
       Allow from @LOCAL
    </Location>

    # Restrict access to configuration files...
    <Location /admin/conf>
       AuthType Basic
       Require user @SYSTEM
       Order allow,deny
       Allow from @LOCAL
    </Location>

The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.

Reason: CUPS generates a certificate automatically so this should not be an issue (Discuss in Talk:CUPS/Printer sharing#)

You might also need to add:

    DefaultEncryption Never

This should avoid the error: 426 - Upgrade Required when using the CUPS web interface from a remote machine.

## Troubleshooting

See CUPS/Troubleshooting for general troubleshooting tips.

### Cannot print with GTK applications

If you get "getting printer information failed" when you try to print from gtk-applications, add this line to your `/etc/hosts`:

     # serverip 	some.name.org 	ServersHostname

### Unable to add/modify a printer via SAMBA

When adding a or modifying a printer via SAMBA, the interface hangs at 100% CPU for about 30 seconds and then returns the message

    Unable to get list of printer drivers: Success

This is a known bug in Gutenprint (https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/43708). The workaround is to uninstall Gutenprint and install only foomatic-db.

     lpinfo -m

should then return the list of drivers instead of just the "Success" message.

### Permission errors on Windows

Some users fixed 'NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED' (Windows clients) errors by using a slightly different syntax:

    smb://workgroup/username:password@hostname/printer_name

## Other operating systems

More information on interfacing CUPS with other printing systems can be found in the CUPS manual, e.g. on http://localhost:631/help/network.html

Category:

- Printers

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