Mac OS X Clients: Printing

[tomdawson]

Hi there,

 

Problem with setting up our new Mac OS X 10.6 SL server and OS X 10.6 clients

 

I have given up all hope of getting the server to talk to one of our printers over IP, so looked at Bonjour. This works a treat from the server, I can print with TextEdit just fine.

 

Sending that printer out to the clients with WGM, the printer appears as available just fine, but when attempting to print it produces one page with two lines of what looks like PCL script followed by 8 or 9 blank pages.

 

Has anyone else had anything like this, or any suggestions to make? Would be most appreciated

 

P.S. Stand by for another post about mapping home drives

[Carter]

Sounds like you don't have the print drivers setup on the clients machines?

 

I use WGM to push out printer settings as well. What you do is setup the printers on the server via. IP and then send them to the clients. This works rather smoothly here. Nice when a printer goes down and I can make a few minor adjustments on the server and have the computer printing to another printer.

 



Edited October 4, 2010 by Carter

[tomdawson]

Thanks Carter.

 

Come to think of it now, once on the server it prompted me to connect to apple software update to download the drivers for this printer (HP Color LaserJet 3600n). At no point whatsoever have I been able to recreate this on the clients. I have scoured the HP website but it just takes me to a page informing me that the drivers for this printer are bundled in with OS X...but they are clearly not, the closest match I have is a CLJ 3000 or a CLJ 3700 - clearly not right.

 

So am I right in thinking that printing with the Macs does not work in the same way as a Windows server, i.e. your workstation prints to the server and it then connects to the printer, the WGM simply says 'here use this printer' and it's still up to the client to work out print drivers?

 

Any more clues welcomed!

[Carter]

If you can not find a driver on the HP site have a look at GimpPrint Gutenprint for Mac OS X

 



[tomdawson]

D'oh. I am a fool. I installed the optional 1.7GB of printer drivers onto the mac and it all works perfectly now

 

I'm new to all this Mac stuff! Thanks for the pointers Carter

[HodgeHi]

What printer queues were you using? Are they AD printer queues? If so you will need to deploy an additional piece of software as macs don't work with windows print kerberos authentication. You will need ksmbprintd.

 

Then once this is installed you can then use Windows Server print queues. You will still need to make sure that the drivers are in place on the clients.

 

Also when managing client print queues you need to create the queues on a client machine and not the OS X server.

 

To do this, install ksmbprintd on the client you are using to manage the OS X print queues. Go to the system preferences and then print and fax. Click the + icon below the printers list. This will bring up a dialog box. Right-click any space on the toolbar and then click customise toolbar. Add the advanced option.

 

On the type choose Windows printer via samba with kerberos support.

 

Under the URL it should now be prefixed with ksmb://

Complete the URl by pointing to the Printer Share name

 

Do not use the print queue name. This does not work for OS X.

 

Enter the remaining details such as name, location and choose the driver.

 

Once the printers are in the list on your client management machine. Test printing to make sure that they work. If they do, then you can continue to start the managing.

 

Open WGM and then click on the printing preference. Now in the Printing list in WGM you should see a list of the printers that you added previously.

 

Hope this helps.

 

I think this is the same for OS X Server print queues except the ksmbprintd part is not needed. However, print queues on OS X Servers is terrible. Could never get them to work properly from 1.4 to 10.5. Not tried 10.6.

[Carter]

Asking a stupid question .... but what's the purpose of "ksmbprintd" & what does it do? I do not use this and I've have no issues with OS X 10.5 & 10.6 using both Windows Server 2003 (now retired) & 2008 (current) as our Print server. The address is pointed towards the AD print server and I make sure the "Queue" is named with the correct name that it is named on the Print Server. I've been running this for three years now without an issue and never have to add anything in the image.

 

Also, because we simply point the computers to the Print Server which we also have print account software on, the users account will be see as the one sending the print job from the client and ding the users print credits.

 

10.0.0.1 = Print Server

PRINTERNAME = the AD name of the printer

 

http://i.imgur.com/t6XRs.png

 



Edited October 6, 2010 by Carter

[HodgeHi]

If you print to a Windows print queue from a mac when logged in using an AD User account you have to re-authenticate to print. An authentication dialog pops up asking for your credentials. Using ksmbprintd this bypasses this issue by instead of using the normal smb print queues it uses the ksmb print queue. They are set up in the same manner but pass the kerberos ticket properly to the print server. This removes the need for users to re-authenticate just to print.

 

We have it set up similar to yours. We have os x 10.5 and 10.6 clients with papercut. Users print, don't need to auth and the jobs passes through the queue and quota reduces accordingly, seamlessly (most of the time )

[Carter]

I've never seen a dialog box pop up. All the Macs are using AD and everyone authenticates with their AD user/password. This is how we are able to have print credits. Print jobs get sent automatically to the print server and uses the AD credentials of the user logged in.

 



[DMcCoy]

If you print to a Windows print queue from a mac when logged in using an AD User account you have to re-authenticate to print. An authentication dialog pops up asking for your credentials. Using ksmbprintd this bypasses this issue by instead of using the normal smb print queues it uses the ksmb print queue. They are set up in the same manner but pass the kerberos ticket properly to the print server. This removes the need for users to re-authenticate just to print.

 

We have it set up similar to yours. We have os x 10.5 and 10.6 clients with papercut. Users print, don't need to auth and the jobs passes through the queue and quota reduces accordingly, seamlessly (most of the time )

 

Or use lpd queues on the windows server with print services for unix. The client still supplies the name of the user to print manage plus with it here too.

[Carter]

Or use lpd queues on the windows server with print services for unix. The client still supplies the name of the user to print manage plus with it here too.

 

This maybe the way our Print Server are setup .... because it just works

 



[donkeymusic]

HI, been reading through this post with some interest, i have set my printers up onteh xserve and using WGM trying to assign printers to clients. However even though they are set, they are not showing up on the client machines.

 

Any ideas?

 

thanks

[Boon72]

one thing you need to make sure of is that the drivers are on both the server and the clients.

 

@Donkeymusic - do you have it on the users or computers?

[donkeymusic]

ah i was thinking that client pulled the drivers from the server.

 

Is there a way of installing the drivers using WGM to the clients?

 

Thanks

[Boon72]

i use Apple Remote Desktop to do most of the admin tasks like that.

[donkeymusic]

i would normallym just havent looked at installing drivers that way but will do, thanks

[tomdawson]

Is there a way of installing the drivers using WGM to the clients?

 

Doesn't appear so. I ended up finding as many drivers as I could and installing them onto my 'imaging' machine before sending out the netinstall image. It's a bit clunky as you'll obviously end up with drivers you don't need in the images, but it's the simplest thing to do without buying Apple Remote Desktop!

[donkeymusic]

Doesn't appear so. I ended up finding as many drivers as I could and installing them onto my 'imaging' machine before sending out the netinstall image. It's a bit clunky as you'll obviously end up with drivers you don't need in the images, but it's the simplest thing to do without buying Apple Remote Desktop!

 

sorry i meant is it possible to install drivers by using Apple Remote Desktop?

 

thanks

[Carter]

sorry i meant is it possible to install drivers by using Apple Remote Desktop?

 

thanks

 

If your drivers are installed via a "package" then yes. Just use the install package option.

 



Edited November 8, 2010 by Carter

[donkeymusic]

If your drivers are installed via a "package" then yes. Just use the install package option.

 



 

I have the drivers downloaded as dmg files but when i try to using ARD to install package, then are greyed out and unselectable.