Samba HP Officejet 6210 XP problems

[1arryb]

Dear samba forum,

I've now wasted most of a weekend on this issue, so now it's time to swallow my pride and ask for help!

Background:

My main home computer died. I can't afford to replace it right now, so I'm attempting to retread an old AMD PC into a linux print/file server. Clients are a mixed bag of Windows XP home/professional PCs. The printer is an HP Officejet 6210 multifunction print/scan/fax. I'm only attempting to get basic printing working between Windows/Linux.

File shares to the PCs are working great. The printer is working locally via cups and hplip. The printer is exported via Samba and is visible from the windows boxes (i.e., you can see it in Network Neighborhood and get the status of the print queue using the DOS 'net print' command). You can see my smb.conf file at the bottom of this post.

Problem:

The basic catch-22 with this printer model is that the drivers aren't part of the standard XP distro. The XP printer installation wizard expects the drivers to be available from the print server. After searching the net, I came across this basic installation method:

1. Temporarily plug the printer into the XP PC and install the drivers from the Printer CD. Then plug the printer back into the linux server.

At this point 2 techniques were suggested, neither of which worked for me:

2a. Go back to the wizard and install the remote printer, using the correct driver this time. This apparantly succeeds, but printint the test page fails with an uninformative popup inviting me to go to the troubleshooting wizard (which is equally unhelpful).

or

2b. Hack the local printer configuration by going to properties-->ports and creating a Local port with the value \\<servername>\<printername>, as shared by Samba. This step fails for me with error 66 "The network resource type is not correct".

So that's it, I'm stuck. I would love to hear from anyone who has worked through this problem already. Failing that, how can I pick apart this problem to figure out what's failing?

Note: There was also some discussion in the forums about the print$ share and loading drivers on the Linux box, but I never figured out if that was relevant to my use case (Linux server/Windows client).

Many thanks in advance to those who reply.

Cheers,

Larry

My smb.conf

# Samba config file created using SWAT
# from 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1)
# Date: 2007/04/08 18:33:12

[global]
workgroup = HOMENET
server string = Samba Server
log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
max log size = 50
add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -d /dev/null -g samba-clients -s
/bin/false -M %u
os level = 65
preferred master = Yes
domain master = Yes
dns proxy = No
wins support = Yes
ldap ssl = no
cups options = raw

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
read only = No
create mask = 0664
directory mask = 0775
browseable = No

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /usr/spool/samba
printable = Yes
browseable = No

[hp6210]
comment = The HP multifunction printer w. scan and fax capability
path = /usr/spool/samba
printer admin = root, lbarnett
read only = No
guest ok = Yes
min print space = 2000
printable = Yes
cups options =
printer name = hp6210
oplocks = No
share modes = No

[shared]
available = No

[print$]
comment = Samba print driver download area
path = /etc/samba/drivers
admin users = root, lbarnett
guest ok = Yes

 

[1arryb]

Well, after a second weekend of Samba/Windows hell, I solved my problem, but...wait for it...THE SOLUTION DOESN'T USE SAMBA! Instead, it uses CUPS IPP.

Note: Many thanks to Colin Stewart of the UK for his excellent writeup at

http://www.owlfish.com/thoughts/winipp-cups-2003-07-20.html.

To summarize my solution:

1. Install the drivers on the windows box by temporarily connecting the printer to the client and using the manufacturer-supplied disk.
2. Move the printer to the linux box and get it working with cups and hplip.
3. Create a 2nd queue for the printer and define it as make "Generic" type "Raw".
4. Share the raw printer with CUPS.
5. On the windows box, connect to the printer as an "internet printer at

http://<servername>:631/printers/<raw_queuname>.

6. (HP Officejet idiosyncracy). Select generic Officejet as the printer typ in the wizard. Go back to printer->properties->advanced and change it to the 6200 series later.

And that...is...it. Works like a dream.

Regards to all,

Larry