Printing to a windows shared Printer with CUPS and Samba

Printing to a windows shared Printer with CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) is relatively straight forward. The following was on a FreeBSD system.

First you must install both the CUPS and Samba ports. You can do this through the sysinstall utility.

After doing this you need to start both CUPS and Samba.

Add the following to your /etc/rc.conf to start these services after a boot.

samba_enable=“YES”
cupsd_enable=“YES”
devfs_system_ruleset=“system”

You can use the CUPS Web Utility to modify the CUPS configuration file and add printers.

You will need to point your browser to localhost:631 to log in. Log in as root.
Using the smbclient you can get all of the information you need to add the printer in the CUPS Administration Utility

samba# smbclient -L Speak -U test
Password:
Domain=[SPEAK] OS=[Windows 5.1] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]

      Sharename       Type      Comment\\
      ---------       ----      -------\\
      IPC$            IPC       Remote IPC\\
      print$          Disk      Printer Drivers\\
      HPOffice        Printer   HP OfficeJet\\
      HPDeskJe        Printer   HP DeskJet 712C\\
      PTS Logo        Disk\\
      temp            Disk\\
      ADMIN$          Disk      Remote Admin\\
      C$              Disk      Default share\\
      AutoCano        Printer   Auto Canon iP3500 series on PTS-007\\

Domain=[SPEAK] OS=[Windows 5.1] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]

      Server               Comment\\
      ---------            -------

      Workgroup            Master\\
      ---------            -------\\

samba#

The key is the device URI which should look like
Device URI: smb://Speak/password@Speak/AutoCano

At this point your printer should be working. Print a test page from the CUPS Utility.

For more information or support for cups and samba call 410-838-5100 or email us at experts@expertsinunix.com Skype: pts.support