Printer networking question -- HP Jetdirect?

Hi:

I have a HP Laserjet 1200 series printer plugged into the parallel port
of one of the two Linux boxes on my home LAN. But the two Linux boxes
also run VMware with Win98 or Win2k guests.

The Linux box with no printer can print fine to the Linux box with
printer. But the VMware guests cannot print via the network. The
VMware machines both have host-only networking and bridged networking
configured and operating normally.

So far I have only been unable to print from the VMware guest on the
Linux box with the physical printer connection, using the direct
parallel port connection.

This is a pain in the butt because I have to

#modprobe -r lp

before running the VM to free the parallel port, and after that no
Linuxes can talk to the printer. I am no Samba expert, so haven't tried
more serious attempts at configuring the VMware host-only Samba server
to share the printer or running another Samba server over the bridged
networking. Experience with a similar situation at work and from
reading the VMware newsgroups suggest it can't be made to work, or only
experts can pull it off.

I am thinking the easiest thing to do would be to put the printer on the
LAN instead of the parallel port. This could turn out to be best also
because I may want to use the parallel port for some embedded
microprocessor development that requires the physical port.

I am thinking about purchasing the "HP Jetdirect 170x external print
server for Ethernet 10Base-T networks" for the tolerable price of $130.

Can I expect this to work easily in my Linux LAN environment? I have
experience with a direct-to-TCP-port printing setup at work, where it
works as easy as pie, and I can telnet to the printer to tinker with its
settings. This Jetdirect server says it runs a webserver for config via
web browser, but also there is some software which I presume only runs
on Winblows.

I hope I don't need the software and the configuration can be
accomplished only with the web browser on the Linux boxes.

Any experiences with this sort of thing, and/or this model of Jetdirect?

Thanks for input.

Good day!



--
_____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
crobc@earthlink.net
Suse 8.1 Linux 2.4.19

Chris Carlen <crobc@bogus_field.earthlink.net> wrote:

> I am thinking the easiest thing to do would be to put the printer on the
> LAN instead of the parallel port.

This would be the easiest method, but another way would be to install a
print-server on the local machine, and configure everything to use that.
You've probably already got lpd installed, or similar, so this is quite
simple. You just need to allow your Windows virtual hosts access.

I've found the easiest way to install printers into a small Windows
environment is to completely ignore Samba, and install LPD print support
under the Windows machines. *Much* easier to configure. There is
instructions for how to do this in the help system on Windows. You might
also try searching for instructions I once wrote.

The article was called 'What to do when you have the Samba printing
blues'. I suggest also adding 'dunlug' to your search terms, as it was
on the dunlug mailing list.

> I am thinking about purchasing the "HP Jetdirect 170x external print
> server for Ethernet 10Base-T networks" for the tolerable price of $130.

Seems kind of expensive if this is in USD, but then, it is a brand name.
I picked up a cheapy no-name from my local electronics store and it's
been working fine with my HP LaserJet 4, plus it has various methods of
being printed to (I just use the LPR method).

> Can I expect this to work easily in my Linux LAN environment?

Certainly, I usually configure such printers with 'printtool', as I
can't recall what to put into the various fields in the printcap file
for a JetDirect printer.

> I have experience with a direct-to-TCP-port printing setup at work,
> where it works as easy as pie, and I can telnet to the printer to
> tinker with its settings. This Jetdirect server says it runs a
> webserver for config via web browser, but also there is some software
> which I presume only runs on Winblows.

I would suggest avoiding the webserver part (or at least, relying on
it). The version on my _crappy_ HP LaserJet 2100TN at work refuses to
work at all (Requires an earlier Java?).

HP also provides their propietary Web Jet Admin software too, though it
is only supported under RedHat and SuSE. I've had good experience just
querying the printer with 'npadmin --status printer.localdomain', since
the crappy printer doesn't have a status panel.

> I hope I don't need the software and the configuration can be
> accomplished only with the web browser on the Linux boxes.

Simple.

--
Cameron Kerr
cameron.kerr@paradise.net.nz : http://nzgeeks.org/cameron/
Empowered by Perl!

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004, Chris Carlen <crobc@BOGUS_FIELD.earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I have a HP Laserjet 1200 series printer plugged into the parallel port
> of one of the two Linux boxes on my home LAN. But the two Linux boxes
> also run VMware with Win98 or Win2k guests.
>
> The Linux box with no printer can print fine to the Linux box with
> printer. But the VMware guests cannot print via the network. The
> VMware machines both have host-only networking and bridged networking
> configured and operating normally...
>
> I am thinking about purchasing the "HP Jetdirect 170x external print
> server for Ethernet 10Base-T networks" for the tolerable price of $130.
>
> Can I expect this to work easily in my Linux LAN environment? I have
> experience with a direct-to-TCP-port printing setup at work, where it
> works as easy as pie, and I can telnet to the printer to tinker with its
> settings. This Jetdirect server says it runs a webserver for config via
> web browser, but also there is some software which I presume only runs
> on Winblows.

At work we had JetDirect 610n card in a 2200DTN (until the card died), but
it is now on an ancient JetDirect EX Plus. Our OfficeJet G85 is now on a
JetDirect x175 (USB port). Any of those were simple to print to by
confiring a TCP printing port in XP/NT (for LPR or JetDirect). The EX
Plus only had a telnet config interface, but WebJetAdmin can coax more
info out of it (like total pages, to estimate remaining toner). The
others have Web interface that has never been a problem to access with any
OS (except when the 1 card died). Although, the only access to them I
have done from Linux was to their web/telnet config via ssh tunnel to
factory 3000 miles and back through VPN 3000 miles (to get to office 3
miles away).

At home I have a Linksys EFSP42 switch/printserver that works fine for
lpr/ipp printing from Linux or WinXP (Win98se needed tp_lpr shareware
to access it on different subnet). Although, XP is not ipp://URL aware so
for its internet printing I used http://netprn.localdomain:631/queuename

--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/

Chris Carlen wrote:
[stuff]

Thanks for the replies, folks.



--
_____________________
Christopher R. Carlen
crobc@earthlink.net
Suse 8.1 Linux 2.4.19