The SMB network protocol is used by many Microsoft
Operating Systems to implement file and printer sharing.
SAMBA is a UNIX package that implements the SMB protocol and
provides a simple and easy way to import and export file
systems and printer facilities. The web site for SAMBA is http://www.samba.org. The SAMBA code is extremely
easy to install and the SWAT
(Samba Web Administration Tool) makes configuration almost
trivial.
The See the SAMBA doc/text/Printing.txt and related
documentation for details on printing. In the samba.conf file [global] section or in the SWAT page for
printing configuration you need to specify the that you want
to have Samba handle printing, the print, lpq, and lprm commands to be used when a user
prints a job, asks for status, or removes a job, and a
temporary directory to hold print jobs when they are
submitted. The following is a simple example of to set up
printing for authenticated users.
[printers]
path = /var/spool/lpd/samba
# --- do not use the Samba default path = /tmp
print ok = yes
printing = lprng
load printers = yes
guest ok = no
printcap name = /etc/printcap
print command = /usr/bin/lpr -P%p -r %s
lpq command = /usr/bin/lpq -P%p
lprm command = /usr/bin/lprm -P%p %j
lppause command = /usr/sbin/lpc hold %p %j
lpresume command = /usr/sbin/lpc release %p %j
queuepause command = /usr/sbin/lpc -P%p stop
queueresume command = /usr/sbin/lpc -P%p start
Samba will make a copy of the files to be printed in
the directory specified by path.
If the print operation fails then sometimes the print
file is left in the directory.
The directory should have the same ownership and
permissions as /tmp, i.e.-
owner and group root and bin, with 01777 permissions, where 01000 is the sticky bit.
A directory whose `sticky bit' is set becomes an
append-only directory, or, more accurately, a directory
in which the deletion of files is re- stricted. A file in
a sticky directory may only be removed or renamed by a
user if the user has write permission for the directory
and the user is the owner of the file, the owner of the
directory, or the super-user. This feature is usefully
applied to directories such as /tmp which must be
publicly writable but should deny users the license to
arbitrarily delete or rename each others' files.
The directory should be examined periodically and
files older then a day should be removed. The following
command can be used to do this, and should be put in a
file that is periodically (one a day) executed by the cron facility:
You must specify the print method as printing = lprng. This will allow Samba to
parse the LPRnglpq status format correctly.
You must put all of the printers which Samba has
access to in the printcap file.
Your Samba server may support reading the printcap file
by using a program. In this case the printcap file entry
can be one of the following:
[printers]
#
printcap name = |/usr/local/libexec/filters/getpc
# or
printcap name = |/usr/bin/lpc client all
#!/bin/sh
# getpc program
/usr/bin/lpq -as | /bin/sed -e 's/[@:].*//p'
The lpc client all command
will generate the printcap entries for all of the
printers. This was done to support Samba and other
printer gateway systems. You can also use a simple script
to modify the output of the printer status command as
shown in the example.
Samba can be configured to allow guests or
non-authenticated users to spool print jobs.
Unfortunately, by default lpr
will mark the jobs as submitted by the Samba server, not
the remote users. To solve this problem, the lpr -U%U@%M option causes lpr to mark the jobs as submitted by
user %U on host %M, instead of the Samba server process.
The use of this option is restricted to root and a set of
userids listed in the allow_user_setting
configuration option. If the userid of the submitter is
not in this list, then the option is quietly ignored. The
-U%U@M can also be used with the
other LPRng commands as well. For example: