+There are Four (4) Extracts here from mail in the Samba Mailing List.
+The key contribution here is from Kurt Pfeifle.
+
+I added them to this repository in the hope that someone would find the information helpful.
+John T. <jht@samba.org>
+
+==============================================================================
+<<< EXTANT 1 >>>
+==============================================================================
+Subject: Print Filtering Mechanism Explained
+============================================
+
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 15:38:02 +0200
From: "Kurt Pfeifle" <kpfeifle@danka.de>
Reply-To: kpfeifle@danka.de
can possibly tweak it to their needs.
+==============================================================================
+<<< EXTANT 2 >>>
+==============================================================================
+Subject: Print Drivers and Devices with CUPS
+============================================
+
+CUPS ships a well-working Laserjet driver. Install it (as root) with
+
+ "lpadmin -p laserjet4plus -v parallel:/dev/lp0 -E -m laserjet.ppd"
+
+(The "-m" switch will retrieve the "laserjet.ppd" from the standard repository
+for not-yet-installed-PPDs, which CUPS keeps at "/usr/share/cups/model/". Alter-
+natively, you may use "-P /absolute/filesystem/path/to/where/there/is/PPD/your.ppd")
+
+You didn't state if the print system is working on the Linux side of things.
+Even if it does -- to print from Windows, involves some more steps....
+
+But let me first point out some more general things about printer "drivers"
+for Linux/Unix (yes, and for Mac OS X now!), be it you use CUPS or one of
+the venerable (I'd even call them "ancient" and "rusty" now...) printing
+systems.
+
+You -- and everybody else, for that matter -- should always also consult the
+database on linuxprinting.org for all recommendations about "which driver
+is best used for which printer":
+
+ http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi
+
+There select your model and click on "Show". You'll arrive at a page listing
+all drivers working with your model. There will always be *one* "recommended"
+one. Try this one first. In your case ("HP LaserJet 4 Plus"), you'll arrive
+here:
+
+ http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=75104
+
+The recommended driver is "ljet4". It has a link to the page for the ljet4
+driver too:
+
+ http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_driver.cgi?driver=ljet4
+
+On the driver's page, you'll find various important and detailed infos about
+how to use that driver within various spoolers. You can generate a PPD for
+CUPS. The PPD contains all the info about how to use your model and the driver;
+this is, once installed, working transparently for the user -- you'll only
+need to choose resolution, paper size etc. from the web-based menu or from
+the print dialog GUI or from the commandline...
+
+On the driver's page, choose to use the "PPD-O-Matic" online PPD generator
+program. Select your model and click "Generate PPD file". When you safe the
+appearing ASCII text file, don't use "cut'n'past" (as it will possible corrupt
+line endings and tabs), but use "Save as..." in your browser's menu. Save it
+at "/some/path/on/your/filesystem/somewhere/my-name-for-my-printer.ppd"
+
+Then install the printer:
+
+ "lpadmin -p laserjet4plus -v parallel:/dev/lp0 -E -P /some/path/on/your/filesystem/somewhere/my-name-for-my-printer.ppd"
+
+Note, that for all the "Foomatic-PPDs" from Linuxprinting.org, you also need
+a special "CUPS filter" named "cupsomatic". Get the latest version of
+"cupsomatic" from
+
+ http://www.linuxprinting.org/cupsomatic
+
+This needs to be copied to "/usr/lib/cups/filter/cupsomatic" and be made world
+executable. This filter is needed to read and act upon the specially encoded
+Foomatic comments, embedded in the printfile, which in turn are used to
+construct (transparently for you, the user) the complicated ghostscript command
+line needed for your printer/driver combo.
+
+You can have a look at all the options for the Ghostscript commandline supported
+by your printer and the ljet4 driver by going to the section "Execution details",
+selecting your model (Laserjet 4 Plus) and clicking on "Show execution details".
+This will bring up this web page:
+
+ http://www.linuxprinting.org/execution.cgi?driver=ljet4&printer=75104&.submit=Show+execution+details
+
+The ingenious thing is this: the database is kept very current. If there
+is a bug fix and an improvement somewhere in the database, you will
+always get the most current and stable and feature-rich driver by following
+the steps described above... Till Kamppeter from MandrakeSoft is doing an
+excellent job here, and too few people still know about it. (So if you use
+it often, please send him a note of your appreciation sometime...)
+
+(The latest and greatest improvement now is support for "custom page sizes"
+for all those printers which support it...)
+
+"cupsomatic" is documented here:
+
+ http://www.linuxprinting.org/cups-doc.html
+
+More printing tutorial info may be found here:
+
+ http://www.linuxprinting.org/kpfeifle/LinuxKongress2002/Tutorial/
+
+Note, that *all* the Foomatic drivers listed on Linuxprinting.org (now
+approaching the "all-time high" number of 1.000 for the supported models)
+are using a special filtering chain involving Ghostscript, as described
+in great detail in the Samba CVS sources (for 2.2.x) in
+
+ docs/textdocs/CUPS-PrintingInfo.txt
+
+To sum it up:
+
+* having a "foomatic+<something>" PPD is not enough to print with CUPS
+ (but it is *one* important component)
+* you also need the "cupsomatic" filter script (Perl) in "/usr/lib/cups/filters/"
+* you need Perl to make cupsomatic run
+* you also need Ghostscript (because it is called and controlled by the
+ PPD/cupsomatic combo in a way to fit your printermodel/driver combo...)
+* your Ghostscript *must*, depending on the driver/model, contain support
+ for a certain "device" (as shown by "gs -h")
+
+In the case of the "hpijs" driver, you need a Ghostscript version, which
+is showing a "ijs" amongst its supported devices in "gs -h". In the case of
+"hpijs+foomatic", a valid ghostscript commandline would be reading like this:
+
+ gs -q -dBATCH -dPARANOIDSAFER -dQUIET -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=ijs \
+ -sIjsServer=hpijs<PageSize> -dDuplex=<Duplex> <Model> \
+ -r<Resolution>,PS:MediaPosition=<InputSlot> -dIjsUseOutputFD \
+ -sOutputFile=- -
+
+Note, that with CUPS and the "hpijs+foomatic" PPD (plus Perl and cupsomatic)
+you don't need to remember this. You can choose the available print options
+thru a GUI print command (like "glp" from ESP's commercially supported
+PrintPro software, or KDE's "kprinter", or GNOME's "gtklp" or the independent
+"xpp") or the CUPS web interface via human-readable drop-down selection
+menus.....
+
+If you use "ESP Ghostscript" (also under the GPL, provided by Easy Software
+Products, the makers of CUPS, downloadable from http://www.cups.org/software.html,
+co-maintained by the developers of linuxprinting.org), you are guaranteed to
+have in use the most uptodate, bug-fixed, enhanced and stable version of a Free
+Ghostscript. It contains support for ~300 devices, whereas plain vanilla
+GNU Ghostscript 7.05 only has ~200....
+
+>>/ However, I can only print a Cups test page, from the web interface. when I
+/>>/ try to print a windows test page, it acts like the job was never sent.
+/
+ * Can you print "standard" jobs from the CUPS machine?
+
+ * Are the jobs from Windows visible in the Web interface on CUPS
+ (http://localhost:631/)?
+
+*Most important:* What kind of printer driver are you using on the Windows clients???
+
+You can try to get a more detailed debugging info by setting "LogLevel debug" in
+"/etc/cups/cupsd.conf", re-start cupsd and investigate "/var/log/cups/error_log"
+for the whereabouts of your Windows-originating printjobs:
+
+ * what does the "auto-typing" line say? which is the "MIME type" CUPS thinks
+ is arriving from the Windows clients?
+ * are there "filter" available for this MIME type?
+ * are there "filter rules" defined in "/etc/cups/mime.convs" for this MIME type?
+
+==============================================================================
+<<< EXTANT 3 >>>
+==============================================================================
+Subject: Printer Drivers
+========================
+
+>> Where can I find a program or how can I configure my samba server in order
+>> to limit the number of pages to be printed by users.
+
+The feature you want is dependent on the real print subsystem
+you're using. Samba's part is always to receive the job files
+from the clients (filtered *or* unfiltered) and hand it over
+to this printing subsystem.
+
+Of course one could "hack" things with one's own scripts.
+
+But there is CUPS (Common Unix Printing System). CUPS supports "quotas".
+Quotas can be based on sizes of jobs or on the number of pages or both,
+and are spanning any time period you want.
+
+This is an example command how root would set a print quota in CUPS,
+assuming an existing printer named "quotaprinter":
+
+ lpadmin -p quotaprinter -o job-quota-period=604800 -o job-k-limit=1024 -o job-page-limit=100
+
+This would limit every single user to print 100 pages or 1024 KB of
+data (whichever comes first) within the last 604.800 seconds ( = 1 week).
+
+For CUPS to count correctly, the printfile needs to pass the CUPS
+"pstops" filter, otherwise it uses a "dummy" count of "1". (Some
+printfiles don't pass it -- f.e. image files -- but then those are
+mostly 1 page jobs anyway). This also means, proprietary drivers for
+the target printer running on the client computers and CUPS/Samba
+then spooling these files as "raw" (i.e. leaving them untouched, not
+filtering them), will be counted as "1-pagers" too!
+
+You need to send PostScript from the clients (i.e. run a PostScript
+driver there) for having the chance to get accounting done. If the
+printer is a non-PostScript model, you need to let CUPS do the job to
+convert the file to a print-ready format for the target printer. This
+will be working for currently ~1.000 different printer models, see
+
+ http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi
+
+Before CUPS-1.1.16 your only option was to use the Adobe PostScript
+Driver on the Windows clients. The output of this driver was not always
+passed thru the "pstops" filter on the CUPS/Samba side, and therefor was
+not counted correctly (the reason is that it often --- depending on the
+"PPD" being used --- did write a "PJL"-header in front of the real
+PostScript which made CUPS to skip the pstops and go directy to
+the "pstoraster" stage).
+
+ From CUPS-1.1.16 onward you can use the "CUPS PostScript Driver
+for Windows NT/2K/XP clients" (it is tagged in the download area of
+http://www.cups.org/ as the "cups-samba-1.1.16.tar.gz" package).
+It is *not* working for Win9x/ME clients. But it....
+
+ ...it guarantees to not write an PJL-header;
+ ...it guarantees to still read and support all PJL-options named
+ in the driver PPD with its own means;
+ ...it guarantees the file going thru the "pstops" filter on the
+ CUPS/Samba server;
+ ...it guarantees to page-count correctly the printfile...
+
+You can read more about the setup of this combination in the
+manpage for "cupsaddsmb" (only present with CUPS installed, only
+current with CUPS 1.1.16).
+
+These are the items CUPS logs in the "page_log" for every single
+*page* of a job:
+
+* Printer name
+* User name
+* Job ID
+* Time of printing
+* the page number
+* the number of copies
+* a billing info string (optional)
+
+Here is an extract of my CUPS server's page_log file to illustrate
+the format and included items:
+
+infotec_IS2027 kurt 40 [22/Nov/2002:13:18:03 +0100] 1 2 #marketing
+infotec_IS2027 kurt 40 [22/Nov/2002:13:18:03 +0100] 2 2 #marketing
+infotec_IS2027 kurt 40 [22/Nov/2002:13:18:03 +0100] 3 2 #marketing
+infotec_IS2027 kurt 40 [22/Nov/2002:13:18:03 +0100] 4 2 #marketing
+infotec_IS2027 kurt 40 [22/Nov/2002:13:18:03 +0100] 5 2 #marketing
+infotec_IS2027 kurt 40 [22/Nov/2002:13:18:03 +0100] 6 2 #marketing
+
+This was Job ID "40", printed on "infotec_IS2027" by user "kurt",
+a 6-page job printed in 2 copies and billed to "#marketing"...
+
+Which flaws or shortcomings are there?
+
+ * the ones named above;
+ * CUPS really counts the job pages being *processsed in software*
+ (going thru the "RIP") rather than the physical sheets successfully
+ leaving the printing device -- if there is a jam while printing
+ the 5th sheet out of 1000 and the job is aborted by the printer,
+ the "page count" will still show the figure of 1000 for that
+ job;
+ * all quotas are the same for all users (no flexibility to
+ give the boss a higher quota than the clerk)
+ * no support for groups;
+ * no means to read out the current balance or "used-up"
+ number of current quota;
+ * a user having used up 99 sheets of 100 quota will still be
+ able to send and print a 1.000 sheet job;
+ * a user being denied a job because of a filled-up quota
+ doesn't get a meaningful error message from CUPS other than
+ "client-error-not-possible".
+
+But this is the best system out there currently. And there are
+huge improvements under development:
+
+--> page counting will go into the "backends" (these talk directly
+ to the printer and will increase the count in sync with the
+ actual printing process -- a jam at the 5th sheet will lead
+ to a stop in the counting...)
+
+--> quotas will be handled more flexibly;
+
+--> probably there will be support for users to inquire their
+ "accounts" in advance;
+
+--> probably there will be support for some other tools around
+ this topic...
+
+Other than the current stage of the CUPS development, I don't
+know any other ready-to-use tool which you could consider.
+
+
+==============================================================================
+<<< EXTANT 4 >>>
+==============================================================================
+Subject: More on CUPS Print Drivers
+===================================
+
+>> If you could get around the EULA, then you could package preinitialized
+>> drivers and write the information to smbd's tdbs. We have support for
+>> storing driver initialization data already.
+>
+> Have you heard that you can get CUPS printer drivers exactly for that
+> from cups.org? If they are good drivers, this could be very interesting.
+
+Hi, all,
+
+I'll give you some more info about the PostScript driver Volker mentioned
+above here as a reference. (Maybe one day before the 3.0 release it will
+end up as a worked-out paragraph inside the HOWTO collection):
+
+You can download the driver files from http://www.cups.org/software.html. It
+is a separate package from the CUPS base software files, tagged as "CUPS 1.1.16
+Windows NT/2k/XP Printer Driver for SAMBA (tar.gz, 192k)". The filename to
+download is "cups-samba-1.1.16.tar.gz". Upon untar-/unzip-ping it will reveal
+the files
+
+ cups-samba.install
+ cups-samba.license
+ cups-samba.readme
+ cups-samba.remove
+ cups-samba.ss
+
+These have been packaged with the ESP meta packager software "EPM". The
+*.install and *.remove files are simple shell script, which untars the
+*.ss (which is nothing else than a tar-archive) and puts its contents
+into "/usr/share/cups/drivers/". Its contents are 3 files:
+
+ cupsdrvr.dll
+ cupsui.dll
+ cups.hlp
+
+[ ATTENTION: due to a bug the current release puts the "cups.hlp" into
+ "/usr/share/drivers/" instead of "/usr/share/cups/drivers/". To work
+ around this, copy/move the file after running the "./cups-samba.install"
+ script manually to the right place:
+
+ "cp /usr/share/drivers/cups.hlp /usr/share/cups/drivers/" ]
+
+This new CUPS PostScript driver is currently binary-only, but free (as in
+free beer); no source code is provided (yet). The reason is this: it has
+been developed with the help of the Microsoft Driver Developer Kit (DDK)
+and compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio 6. It is not clear to the driver
+developers if they are allowed to distribute the whole of the source code
+as Free Software. However, they will likely release the "diff" in source
+code under the GPL, so anybody with a license of Visual Studio and a DDK
+will be able to compile for him/herself.
+
+Once you have run the install script (and possibly manually moved the
+"cups.hlp" file to "/usr/share/cups/drivers/"), the driver is ready to be
+put into Samba's [print$] share (which often maps to "/etc/samba/drivers/"
+and contains a subdir tree with WIN40 and W32X86 branches), by running
+"cupsaddsmb" (see also "man cupsaddsmb" for CUPS 1.1.16). [Don't forget to
+put root into the smbpasswd file by running "smbpasswd" should you run
+this whole procedure for the first time.] Once the driver files are in the
+[print$] share, they are ready to be downloaded and installed by the
+Win NT/2k/XP clients.
+
+NOTE 1: Win 9x/ME clients won't work with this driver. For these you'd
+ still need to use the ADOBE*.* drivers as previously.
+
+NOTE 2: It is not harming if you've still the ADOBE*.* driver files from
+ previous installations in the "/usr/share/cups/drivers/" directory.
+ The new cupsaddsmb (from 1.1.16) will automatically use the
+ "newest" installed driver (which here then is the CUPS drivers).
+
+NOTE 3: Should your Win clients have had the old ADOBE*.* files and the
+ Adobe PostScript drivers installed, the download and installation
+ of the new CUPS PostScript driver for Windows NT/2k/XP will fail
+ at first.
+ It is not enough to "delete" the printer (as the driver files
+ will still be kept by the clients and re-used if you try to
+ re-install the printer). To really get rid of the Adobe driver
+ files on the clients, open the "Printers" folder (possibly via
+ "Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Printers"), right-click
+ onto the folder background and select "Server Properties". A
+ new dialog opens; select the "Drivers" tab; on the list select
+ the driver you want to delete and click on the "Delete" button.
+ (This will only work if there is no single printer left which
+ uses that particular driver -- you need to "delete" all printers
+ using this driver in the "Printers" folder first...)
+
+NOTE 4: Once you have successfully downloaded the CUPS PostScript driver
+ to a client, you can easily switch all printers to this one
+ by proceeding as described elsewhere in the "Samba HOWTO
+ Collection" to change a driver for an existing printer....
+
+
+What are the benefits with the "CUPS PostScript driver for Windows NT/2k/XP"
+as compared to the Adobe drivers?
+
+* no hassle with the Adobe EULA; no hassle with the question "where do I
+ get the ADOBE*.* driver files from?"
+
+* the Adobe drivers (depending on the printer PPD associated with them)
+ often put a PJL header in front of the core PostScript part of the print
+ file (thus the file starts with "<1B>%-12345X" or "<escape>%-12345X"
+ instead of "%!PS"). This leads to the CUPS daemon autotyping the
+ arriving file as a print-ready file, not requiring a pass thru the
+ "pstops" filter (to speak more technical, it is not regarded as the
+ generic MIME type "application/postscript", but as the more special
+ MIME type "application/cups.vnd-postscript"), which therefore also
+ leads to the page accounting in "/var/log/cups/page_log" not receiving
+ the exact mumber of pages; instead the dummy page number of "1" is
+ logged in a standard setup...)
+
+* the Adobe driver has more options to "mis-configure" the PostScript
+ generated by it (like setting it inadvertedly to "Optimize for Speed",
+ instead of "Optimize for Portability", which could lead to CUPS being
+ unable to process it....)
+
+* the CUPS PostScript driver output sent by Windows clients to the CUPS
+ server will be guaranteed to be auto-typed as generic MIME type
+ "application/postscript", thusly passing thru the CUPS "pstops" filter
+ and logging the correct number of pages in the page_log for accounting
+ and quota purposes...
+
+* the CUPS PostScript driver supports the sending of additional print
+ options by the Win NT/2k/XP clients, such as naming the CUPS standard
+ banner pages (or the custom ones, should they be installed at the time
+ of driver download), using the CUPS "page-label" option, setting a
+ job-priority and setting the scheduled time of printing (with the option
+ to support additional useful IPP job attributes in the future).
+
+* the CUPS PostScript driver supports the inclusion of the new
+ "*cupsJobTicket" comments at the beginnig of the PostScript file (which
+ could be used in the future for all sort of beneficial extensions on
+ the CUPS side, but which will not disturb any other application as those
+ will regard it as a comment and simply ignore it).
+
+* the CUPS PostScript driver will be the heart of the fully fledged CUPS
+ IPP client for Windows NT/2k/XP to be released soon (probably alongside
+ the first Beta release for CUPS 1.2).
git.samba.org / kai / samba.git / commitdiff