Re: Departmental printing - LPD or CUPS?

On Wed, 09 May 2007 09:33:19 +0100, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Hi all,

I run a network of machines - about 200 accounts, 50 active users - for
a uni department. Everything (servers and user machines) runs some
flavour of Linux, predominantly Fedora Core. Everything is running well
with the exception of printing.

I have some 350 users, mostly Windows, but significant numbers of Mac's
and Linux users at a RAE 5* department at a Russel Group University.


We used to run a mixed Tru64 UNIX/Linux shop and all user workstations
were in the past configured to print direct to the printers using LPD.
The printers are all HP, all are Postscript, and all have Jetdirect
interfaces. Thus my instinct is very much to keep things simple and use
LPD, making spooling the job of the local workstation and queuing
control the job of the Jetdirect firmware.


What you don't say is are there a small number of high performance shared
printers, are are there lots of more "local" printers perhaps shared by
labs/research groups?

Personally I have some 80 network printers mostly HP, but there are some
Brother and Lexmark's which are a pain. There is nothing easier than firing
up the HP Download manager and making sure the firmware on the JetDirects
is current. There is also a smattering of Xerox solid ink Phasers which
one tolerates due to the output quality.

My colleague, however, insists that CUPS is the solution. He likes the
control that the webpage offers, although we hardly use it. I don't
like the fact that print jobs have to travel over the network twice and
that a server and disk space are needed for spooling. We don't need the
additional printer drivers that CUPS offers as all the printers support
PostScript - i.e. just throw the file at the printer and it prints. Of
course, sometimes we get users trying to print binary files or ASCII
text; the former is fixed by cancelling the print job, the latter by
educating the user in the use of a2ps.

The problem with CUPS is that each client will, on a large University
network see a gazillion printers, and you will get documents coming out
the wrong place. I can see about 50 printers at work on my Linux
workstation, despite the fact I have only installed two!

It's like that rendezvous/bonjour stuff from Apple, great in a SOHO
environment useless in a corporate setup. Just setup this HP LaserJet
2605dn, now which one of the dozen I am being shown is mine....


In addition, the CUPS server dies occasionally, and when that happens,
no-one can print. I also don't like the way that CUPS advertises itself
so that it appears as a bewildering number of possible print
destinations in desktop printer control-panels or drop-down dialogs for
print destinations. Some of our users select the first one that works,
which may be a laptop for example. Once the user of that laptop shuts
it down and takes it away, we get complaints from the original user that
they can no longer print.

You later mention that you have 0.75 admin, support. At this point I would
run a million miles from having a print server. What happens when the
admin is away on holiday and it breaks down.

What I'm asking for is - what do other admins do in similar setups? Any
advice or suggestions please?

Well I have everyone doing direct TCP/IP printing on port 9100. You can
happily set each local machine up with a CUPS server so they get the
benefit of CUPS printing. However this works because there are lots of mid
and low end network printers shared between small groups of users. Now if
there is some way I could stop CUPS auto detecting everything in sight I
would be happy.

Someone mentioned JetDirects crashing. I have to say I have *never* seen
this with two provisos. Firstly the JetDirect is up to date with the
firmware, second it is not accessible from the wider internet.


JAB.

--
Jonathan A. Buzzard Email: jonathan (at) buzzard.me.uk
Northumberland, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 1661-832195
.

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