Shared Printer Problems. Mint-to-XP [SOLVED]

[racepics]

Hi all , I'm using Mint 13 MATE 64bit and I have a Canon iP4500 connected by usb and shared. I'm connected via wireless to our Modem/router.
The wife's PC is WinXP64 and connected via eth cable. While the XP PC can see my shared printer, it cannot connect to it. "Windows cannot connect to the printer. The specified printer has lost its connection to the sever.. etc"
Samba file sharing is working fine though, I have shared directories that she has mounted as network-drives and that all works perfectly.
The XP machine does have the correct drivers (they are listed in the search) as the printer has been connected directly to that PC before.

So the printer is enabled and shared and published. XP can see it, but cannot connect to it. Almost seems to be some sort of permissions issue?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Chris

[heavy metal]

Read this maybe it can help you:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=110943

[racepics]

This all worked perfectly when I was using Ubuntu so seeing as Mint is derived from that, I would have thought it would still just work.
(installing virtualbox and another os is a really ugly workaround and kinda defeats the purpose of using linux in the first place)

[altair4]

First, make sure the printer on Mint is shared and the CUPS server is running and set to publish that shared printer and that Samba is allowing access to the printer. You stated in your post that you did all this but I'm just trying to rule out the basics:

Run the following command:

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system-config-printer

** Publish Shared Printers

Server > Settings > Select the following:

Publish Shared Printers connected to this system
Allow printing from the Internet

** Enable Sharing of the Attached Printer

Right Click the attached printer > Properties > Policies
Check Enabled, Accepting Jobs, and Shared

** To allow guest access through Samba:

Edit smb.conf as root:

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gksu gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Look for the [printers] share and change the "guest ok" line from no to yes and add another line:

[printers]
comment = All Printers
browseable = No
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = yes
guest ok = yes
printer admin = @lpadmin
read only = yes
create mask = 0700

Save smb.conf and restart samba:

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sudo service smbd restart 

Second, just to make sure the firewall isn't getting in the way disable it on Mint and see if that it is the issue:

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sudo ufw disable

Third, there is a bug in the latest Ubuntu that follows through to Mint that may or may not affect you. To see if it does open a terminal and run the following command:

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sudo rpcclient localhost

The prompt changes to "rpcclient $>. At that point enter the following command

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enumprinters

You may get an output that looks something like this:

flags:[0x800000]
name:[\\LOCALHOST\]
description:[\\LOCALHOST\,,HP970-Photo]
comment:[HP970-Photo]

Note that the description and the comment contain the correct printer name but the "name" field only contains LOCALHOST. . It's the "name" that Windows needs to connect to and it's empty. To exit the terminal type:

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exit

If the "name" field has the correct printer name then the problem is something else. If it's empty as it is above then see here for how to correct it: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 65#p618065

[racepics]

Thanks for your response. I found that my smb.conf didn't have the printer 'admin = @lpadmin' line so inserted that.

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enumprinters

Gives me this.
flags:[0x800000]
name:[\\LOCALHOST\]
description:[\\LOCALHOST\,,iP4500]
comment:[iP4500]
So I tried to set the printer name

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setprintername iP4500 iP4500

I get this

rpcclient $> setprintername iP4500 iP4500
result was WERR_ACCESS_DENIED
rpcclient $>

[altair4]

That's my fault, sorry. I have in my global section a "force user" which is not the default and I forgot that it was there.

Add one more line to the [printers] section please:

[printers]
comment = All Printers
browseable = No
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = yes
guest ok = yes
printer admin = @lpadmin
force user = altiar
read only = yes
create mask = 0700

Change altair to your own login user name

Restart samba again: sudo service smbd restart

Then do the sudo rpcclient localhost process again.

[racepics]

Thanks - added that line (with my username) but the setprintername process still gives this


rpcclient $> enumprinters
flags:[0x800000]
name:[\\LOCALHOST\]
description:[\\LOCALHOST\,,iP4500]
comment:[iP4500]

rpcclient $> setprintername iP4500 iP4500
result was WERR_ACCESS_DENIED
rpcclient $>

[altair4]

Please post the output of the following command:

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testparm -s

EDIT: Do it this way to bypass everything:

Remove "force user = altair" from the [printers] section and add it to the [global] section - right under the workgroup line:

# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
workgroup = WORKGROUP
force user = altair

Then restart samba and try it again.

[racepics]

testparm -s
Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
rlimit_max: increasing rlimit_max (1024) to minimum Windows limit (16384)
Processing section "[printers]"
WARNING: The "printer admin" option is deprecated
Processing section "[print$]"
Processing section "[disk-1]"
Processing section "[disk-2]"
Loaded services file OK.
Server role: ROLE_STANDALONE
[global]
server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu)
map to guest = Bad User
obey pam restrictions = Yes
pam password change = Yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* .
unix password sync = Yes
syslog = 0
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 1000
dns proxy = No
usershare allow guests = Yes
panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d
idmap config * : backend = tdb

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
printer admin = @lpadmin
force user = chris
create mask = 0700
guest ok = Yes
printable = Yes
print ok = Yes
browseable = No

[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /var/lib/samba/printers
read only = No
guest ok = Yes

[disk-1]
path = /media/disk-1
read only = No
guest ok = Yes

[disk-2]
path = /media/disk-2
read only = No
guest ok = Yes

[altair4]

Posted past each other - I don't know if you saw my edit:

EDIT: Do it this way to bypass everything:

Remove "force user = altair" from the [printers] section and add it to the [global] section - right under the workgroup line:

# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
workgroup = WORKGROUP
force user = altair

Then restart samba and try it again.

[racepics]

You Sir, are a Genius! Thankyou

rpcclient $> setprintername iP4500 iP4500
Success in setting printername.
rpcclient $>

rpcclient $> enumprinters
flags:[0x800000]
name:[\\LOCALHOST\iP4500]
description:[\\LOCALHOST\iP4500,Canon iP4500 series,iP4500]
comment:[iP4500]

rpcclient $>

[altair4]

Whew ! Sorry for the long path to this.

So the WinXP machine can find and print to the Mint printer?

[racepics]

Yes - tested and working
Thanks!

[rickyrockrat]

force user =
Is not necessary. Use this and it will find the user:
rpcclient -U "WORKGROUP\user" -H server
here's a link to the bug in Samba - see for even more info:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/967410