Mapping Network Printers 1

[tlc1974]

Hi,

I have just set up a vpn tunnel between my office and home does anybody know of a way to map my network priter at the office so when I connect to my computer at home from work I can print out to my network printer in the office? Very confusing - I have tried adding my printer drivers to windows server 2000 at home thinking it would automatically map my printer but it doesn't is this because it is a network printer and not a local one?

Can anyone please tell me how to map a network printer???

Completley new to all this so any help will be most appreciated!!!

Thanks

 

[ChicagoTechNet]

can you ping networking printer's IP? If yes, just go to printer setup to add this printer by using IP.

For more tips or information, go to

http://www.ChicagoTech.net

Robert Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Windows, Network and How to at

http://www.ChicagoTech.net

 

[tlc1974]

Hi,

Please can you tell me how I find out the IP Address of the printer as it is on a print server and I am not sure if it will have one specified.

Thanks for your help

 

[tlc1974]

Hi,

The network printers are set up using an intellinet 3 port print server. The printers themselves don't have network cards but the print server utilities program has ip addresses listed in them but I can't ping them - is there any ohter help you can offer?

Thanks

 

[John Lewis]

Couple of possible problems here.

First, I'm assuming that you are able to access other resources on the network beyond the VPN server -- other servers or workstations. If not, you need to back up a bit and fix that first. Printers are harder to deal with than computers with more robust operating systems. It is easier to diagnose the connectivity issues based upon the remote computers.

Again, working with the assumption that you are able to access other computers on the server side network, there are a couple of things that could keep you from being able to ping the print server. First, some print servers simply do not return pings. It is not required for the server to work and is sometimes seen as a security problem.

If this model does return pings otherwise (you could test this by doing a ping from the local network), the most likely cause is routing on the print server side. Again not familiar with this one, but generally the configuration options will have a single entry available for a default gateway. This MUST be set to the IP of the VPN server in order for remote use of the printer to work. If another situation requires that the gateway for the print server be set otherwise, your out of luck.

Another, often easier solution is to configure a connection on the VPN server to the printer (if there is not one there already), then share that connection. Instead of trying to connect to the printer directly, connect to the share on the VPN server. While this does add just a bit of a load to the VPN server (depending upon what you print and how much), it can reduce the overall load on the VPN connection and the server side network, as print servers are often not able to handle slow link traffic well.

On another note, if you find that you are unable to ping, please specify the response that you are getting to your ping command. Although I would suspect you are getting the standard "request timed out" or "no reply from host", other messages that may be generated may offer a clue as to what is going on.