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Configuring RHEL 6 Printers

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This chapter will be devoted to covering the steps required to add printer access to a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 system.
Printers may be connected directly to an RHEL 6 system, accessed over a network or attached to a Windows system on the
network.

Contents

1 Installing a Directly Connected Printer

2 Manually Installing a New Locally Connected
Printer and Printer Driver

3 Adding a Network Printer

4 Configuring a Printer Connected to a Windows
System

5 Configuring a Printer Connected to a Remote
System

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Installing a Directly Connected Printer

By far the easiest type of printer configuration is when the printer is attached directly to the system via a parallel, serial or
USB port. To configure a locally attached printer, invoke the Printer configuration dialog by selecting the System desktop
menu and choosing Printing from the Administration menu. The tool will scan the system and display any detected printers.

The following figure shows the Printer configuration dialog after the detection of a locally attached HP Deskjet 5800 printer:

If no printers are detected make sure the cable to the printer is securely connected, and that the printer is switched on. If the
printer is still not detected the next step is to try to manually add it as outlined in the next section.

Manually Installing a New Locally Connected Printer and Printer

Driver

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When RHEL 6 detects a printer it will automatically select a driver if the printer is recognized and a driver is available. To
manually add a printer, begin by clicking on the New button in the Printer configuration toolbar. A Please Wait. Searching
for Printers dialog will appear as the system is scanned for a locally attached printer followed by a dialog requesting the root
password. Once the search is complete, the New Printer dialog will appear including an entry for each detected printer. In
the following figure, RHEL 6 has detected an HP DeskJet printer connected to a USB port together with a range of other
ports to which a printer could, potentially, be connected:

Select the desired locally connected printer from the list in the left hand panel and click the Forward button. The printer
manager will search for and install the correct driver for the selected printer and then prompt for the option to print a test
page. If the test page option is not provided, in the Printer configuration dialog select your printer, right click with the
mouse to pop up the menu and select Properties. Click on Print Test Page to send a test page to the printer.

Adding a Network Printer

In addition to printers connected directly to a system, RHEL 6 is also able to communicate with network based printers (for
example a WiFi enabled printer present on the same network as the RHEL 6 system). To add a network based printer, begin
by launching the printer settings tool (System -> Administration -> Printing). When the tool appears, click on the New
button located in the toolbar and click on the Network Printer heading located in the Devices panel.

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RHEL 6 will list any network printers that have already been detected. If your desired network printer is not already listed,
select the Find Network Printer option and enter the hostname or IP address of either the printer or the system to which the
printer is connected before clicking on the Find button. If RHEL 6 can locate the printer it will be listed in the Devices panel.
Once located, select the device and click the Forward button to search and install the appropriate driver. Once a driver has
been installed, click Forward once again to provide printer name, location and other descriptive details. Finally, click Apply
to add the printer to the system and to print a test page if desired.

Configuring a Printer Connected to a Windows System

If you need to access a printer that is connected to a Windows system you can easily configure RHEL 6 to support this. The
first step is to visit the Windows system and make sure the printer is shared and, ideally, find out the share name (though the
RHEL 6 Printer configuration tool will allow you to browse the Windows network to find available printers if necessary). On
Windows XP select Printers and Faxes from the Start menu and find your printer. Right click on the printer and select
Sharing. In the properties dialog select Share this printer if it has not already been selected. Enter a Share name or note the
name if one already exists.

On Windows 7, select Devices and Printers from the Start menu, right click on the printer to be shared and select Printer
Properties. In the properties dialog select the Sharing tab. In the properties dialog select Share this printer if it has not
already been selected and Share name or note the name if one already exists.

On the RHEL 6 system, begin by checking that SAMBA traffic is permitted in the Firewall settings (System ->
Administration -> Firewall). Next, invoke the Printer configuration dialog (System -> Administration -> Printing), click on
the New button in the toolbar and select Windows Printer via SAMBA to display the following configuration panel:

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If you already know the workgroup, computer name and printer share name of the device to be accessed enter this
information using the following syntax:

[workgroup]/server[:port]/sharename

Note that the workgroup and :port values are optional. For example, to configure access to a printer with a share name of
hp5850 connected to a Windows system named tahoe residing on the WORKGROUP network, the following would be
entered into the smb:// text field:

WORKGROUP/tahoe/hp5850

Alternatively use the Browse button to graphically locate the required printer using the SMB Browser:

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If the shared printer requires authentication you can choose to be prompted for the login and password each time the printer
is accessed, or to store these credentials in the RHEL 6 printer manager so that they do not need to be manually entered for
each print job.

Having selected the correct printer, click on Verify to confirm that the printer is accessible to RHEL 6. If the verification is
successful, a message dialog will report Print Share Verified. Assuming a successful verification, click Forward and follow
the steps outlined in the previous section to select an appropriate printer driver.

Once the SAMBA printer is configured, right click with the mouse on the new printer in the Printer configuration dialog,
select Properties and click on the Print Test Page button. A test page should then appear on the printer.

Configuring a Printer Connected to a Remote System

RHEL 6 fully supports printing to printers connected to other remote Linux systems. To achieve such a configuration, invoke
the Printers dialog (System -> Administration -> Printing). Click on the New toolbar button, select Other from the category
list and enter the URI of the printer on the remote system. This will be something similar to:

ipp://hostname:631/printers/printername

Where hostname is the either the hostname or IP address of the remote system on which the printer is installed and
printername is the name of the printer on that system. Click Forward and install the driver for the printer model.

Once installed, right click with the mouse on the new printer in the Printers dialog, select Properties and click on the Print
Test Page button. Assuming a successful installation, a test page should subsequently appear on the remote printer.

Purchase and download the full PDF and ePub versions of this RHEL 6 eBook for only
$9.99
PDF/ePub edition contains 40 chapters and over 250 pages.

eBookFrenzy.com

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