GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
Desktop Survival Project Home Preface Advocacy History Distributions Installing GNU/Linux Basic Survival Wajig Applications AI, Machine Learning, Data Science Android - GNU/Linux Devices Audio Backup Booting CD Chinese ChRoot Clock Cloud Computing Command Line Databases DIA Directories Disks Emacs EcoSysL Email Evolution Files File Systems Firewalls Floppy Disks FreedomBox Fonts Ghemical Glade GNOME Graphics, Images, Photos Hardware Initialisations on Booting Installation Examples IOT Java KDE Kernels Keyboard Konqueror KVM Switch LaTeX Log System Login Magellan MATE Mathematics Memory Modems Mounting Devices MS/Windows Music MySQL Nautilus Networks NFS NT File System Oracle Packages Partitions Passwords PDF Power Management PPP Presentations Printing Python R Remote Desktops Rsync Samba Scanning Science Screens Security Sketch Spell SPlus Spruce Spreadsheet SSH SUDO Swap Teradata Data Warehouse Themes TV Unity USB Version Control Video Virtualization Voice over IP World Wide Web WebCam WordPress Web Sites Word Processing and Printing X XML Troubleshooting Index

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE UPDATED SURVIVAL GUIDE

Sharing a Printer on the Network

20190812 First, check the current status of the CUPS system configuration on the server where the printer is connected and known to be functioning:

$ cupsctl
_debug_logging=0
_remote_admin=0
_remote_any=0
_share_printers=0
_user_cancel_any=0
DefaultAuthType=Basic
JobPrivateAccess=default
JobPrivateValues=default
MaxLogSize=0
SubscriptionPrivateAccess=default
SubscriptionPrivateValues=default
SystemGroup=lpadmin
WebInterface=Yes

Notice that _share_printers=0. To enable printer sharing on the server use the command cupsctl.

$ cupsctl --share-printers

$ cupsctl | grep share_printers
_share_printers=1

When sharing, CUPS will allow printing from other hosts on the same local subnet. On another computer check that the connected printer is now available:

$ lpinfo -v
...
network dnssd://HL3040CN%20%40%20theano._ipp._tcp.local/cups?uuid=a67769fe-3acb-327c-7ffa-67eeb2bd318b
...

The printer is identified as HL3040CN_theano, for example, where theano is the name of the host server. The printer may now automatically appear as an option on any print dialogue.

Printers are shared by default from the server but if it is not then share the printer using:

$ lpadmin -p HL3040CN -o printer-is-shared=true