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CUPS: Setting Up a Print Server

Introduction

The Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) is a modular printing system for Unix and Unix-like operating systems. Any computer using CUPS can act as a print server; it can accept documents sent from other machines (client computers), process them, and send them to the appropriate printer.

Installation

The installation is very simple:

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aptitude install cupsys cupsys-client cupsys-bsd cupsys-driver-gimpprint samba-client

I've included a module for creating PDFs and a package containing drivers.

Configuration

Parallel Ports

This technology is now almost obsolete, so it's unlikely that you have a printer operating on a parallel port. If like me you don't need it, disable this option:

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# Cups configure options

# LOAD_LP_MODULE: enable/disable to load "lp" parallel printer driver module
LOAD_LP_MODULE=no

cupsd.conf

Now, let's edit the basic configuration and change it so that we can access it. Here are the lines to replace (in this case my server is 192.168.0.1 in a 192.168.0.0 network):

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...
# Only listen for connections from the local machine.
Listen 192.168.0.1:631
...
# Restrict access to the server...
<Location />
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny From All
    Allow From 192.168.0.*
    Allow From @LOCAL
</Location>
...
# Restrict access to the admin pages...
<Location /admin>
    AuthType Basic
    AuthClass System
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny From All
    Allow From 192.168.0.*
    Allow From @LOCAL
</Location>

Restart the CUPS service afterward.

You can now access the administration interface via: http://192.168.0.1:631 or https://192.168.0.1:631

Administering Printers

To authorize a user account to administer printers, simply add it to the lpadmin group:

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adduser username lpadmin

References

CUPS Documentation