[Printing-architecture] What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Printing-architecture] What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Forza]

Hello,


I have a Ubuntu Server 21.10 with CUPS 2.3.3o installed. I've set up to 
the printers with either socket://printer:9100 or ipp://printer and 
enabled sharing on each queue. This exposes each CUPS queue as an IPP 
printer to all clients.

Now my problem is to determine what driver should be used in Windows.

A little background:

We have several Windows clients ranging from WinXP to Win10 that are 
printing on about a hundred HP printers (LaserJet and PageWide). 
Currently these machines print through a Windows Printer server, but it 
is getting more and more difficult to properly support older clients 
with the HP universal printer drivers. Also from security perspective we 
need to isolate older clients on separate quite restrictive networks and 
generally not enable SMB/Samba access.

There is a built-in Windows driver called "MS Publisher Imagesetter" 
that works pretty well, but it lacks most options such as selecting 
colour/greyscale or duplex output, as well as exposing proper printer 
margins and scaling to the applications.

The CUPS server is not on the same broadcast domain as the clients and 
DNS-SD and similar can not be used. This means that Windows clients 
cannot automatically detect and setup WSD or IPP queues from CUPS.

Someone on IRC said I should use the native HP drivers, but this seems 
wrong to me;
* First there are no updated drivers for older clients
* Isn't the idea of CUPS as a printer spooler to separate the client 
from the printer so that we can use classes etc to direct output without 
the clients knowing?

I'd be grateful for any suggestions and insights.


Forza

[Printing-architecture] Fwd: What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Mark Dm]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2273 bytes --]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Mark Dm <markosjal@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 10:22 PM
Subject: Re: [Printing-architecture] What windows driver to use with a CUPS
IPP server?
To: Forza <forza@tnonline.net>


I think My WIndows 10 had a Generic "IPP Everywhere" driver installed

On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 1:32 PM Forza <forza@tnonline.net> wrote:

> Hello,
>
>
> I have a Ubuntu Server 21.10 with CUPS 2.3.3o installed. I've set up to
> the printers with either socket://printer:9100 or ipp://printer and
> enabled sharing on each queue. This exposes each CUPS queue as an IPP
> printer to all clients.
>
> Now my problem is to determine what driver should be used in Windows.
>
> A little background:
>
> We have several Windows clients ranging from WinXP to Win10 that are
> printing on about a hundred HP printers (LaserJet and PageWide).
> Currently these machines print through a Windows Printer server, but it
> is getting more and more difficult to properly support older clients
> with the HP universal printer drivers. Also from security perspective we
> need to isolate older clients on separate quite restrictive networks and
> generally not enable SMB/Samba access.
>
> There is a built-in Windows driver called "MS Publisher Imagesetter"
> that works pretty well, but it lacks most options such as selecting
> colour/greyscale or duplex output, as well as exposing proper printer
> margins and scaling to the applications.
>
> The CUPS server is not on the same broadcast domain as the clients and
> DNS-SD and similar can not be used. This means that Windows clients
> cannot automatically detect and setup WSD or IPP queues from CUPS.
>
> Someone on IRC said I should use the native HP drivers, but this seems
> wrong to me;
> * First there are no updated drivers for older clients
> * Isn't the idea of CUPS as a printer spooler to separate the client
> from the printer so that we can use classes etc to direct output without
> the clients knowing?
>
> I'd be grateful for any suggestions and insights.
>
>
> Forza
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Printing-architecture mailing list
> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>

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Re: [Printing-architecture] Fwd: What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Forza]

---- From: Mark Dm <markosjal@gmail.com> -- Sent: 2022-04-14 - 07:24 ----
> 
> I think My WIndows 10 had a Generic "IPP Everywhere" driver installed
> 

Hi! 

Yes indeed. It is, however, disabled by default. I enabled it on one machine but I had no luck with it to print to cups. Also it is not available on older clients. 

Thanks 

> On Wed, Apr 13, 2022 at 1:32 PM Forza <forza@tnonline.net> wrote:
> 
>> Hello,
>>
>>
>> I have a Ubuntu Server 21.10 with CUPS 2.3.3o installed. I've set up to
>> the printers with either socket://printer:9100 or ipp://printer and
>> enabled sharing on each queue. This exposes each CUPS queue as an IPP
>> printer to all clients.
>>
>> Now my problem is to determine what driver should be used in Windows.
>>
>> A little background:
>>
>> We have several Windows clients ranging from WinXP to Win10 that are
>> printing on about a hundred HP printers (LaserJet and PageWide).
>> Currently these machines print through a Windows Printer server, but it
>> is getting more and more difficult to properly support older clients
>> with the HP universal printer drivers. Also from security perspective we
>> need to isolate older clients on separate quite restrictive networks and
>> generally not enable SMB/Samba access.
>>
>> There is a built-in Windows driver called "MS Publisher Imagesetter"
>> that works pretty well, but it lacks most options such as selecting
>> colour/greyscale or duplex output, as well as exposing proper printer
>> margins and scaling to the applications.
>>
>> The CUPS server is not on the same broadcast domain as the clients and
>> DNS-SD and similar can not be used. This means that Windows clients
>> cannot automatically detect and setup WSD or IPP queues from CUPS.
>>
>> Someone on IRC said I should use the native HP drivers, but this seems
>> wrong to me;
>> * First there are no updated drivers for older clients
>> * Isn't the idea of CUPS as a printer spooler to separate the client
>> from the printer so that we can use classes etc to direct output without
>> the clients knowing?
>>
>> I'd be grateful for any suggestions and insights.
>>
>>
>> Forza
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Printing-architecture mailing list
>> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
>> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Printing-architecture mailing list
> Printing-architecture@lists.linux-foundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/printing-architecture

Re: [Printing-architecture] What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Johannes Meixner]

Hello,

only a general note FYI:

On 2022-04-13 22:24, Forza wrote (excerpt):
> Someone on IRC said I should use the native HP drivers,
> but this seems wrong to me;
> * First there are no updated drivers for older clients
> * Isn't the idea of CUPS as a printer spooler to separate
>   the client from the printer so that we can use classes etc
>   to direct output without the clients knowing?

You may have a look at my generic but rather old article
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printing_from_Windows_to_Linux

In general it should be still valid in particular for
older Windows versions but some things have changed
meanwhile, e.g. in CUPS 2.3 the cupsaddsmb program
has been removed, cf.
https://github.com/apple/cups/issues/5449

By the way FYI:
Current CUPS upstream is no longer
https://github.com/apple/cups
and
https://www.cups.org
but nowadays it is
https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups
and
https://openprinting.github.io/cups


Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
-- 
SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH
Maxfeldstr. 5 - 90409 Nuernberg - Germany
(HRB 36809, AG Nuernberg) GF: Ivo Totev

Re: [Printing-architecture] What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Forza]

On 4/20/22 09:07, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> only a general note FYI:
> 
> On 2022-04-13 22:24, Forza wrote (excerpt):
>> Someone on IRC said I should use the native HP drivers,
>> but this seems wrong to me;
>> * First there are no updated drivers for older clients
>> * Isn't the idea of CUPS as a printer spooler to separate
>>   the client from the printer so that we can use classes etc
>>   to direct output without the clients knowing?
> 
> You may have a look at my generic but rather old article
> https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printing_from_Windows_to_Linux
> 
> In general it should be still valid in particular for
> older Windows versions but some things have changed
> meanwhile, e.g. in CUPS 2.3 the cupsaddsmb program
> has been removed, cf.
> https://github.com/apple/cups/issues/5449
> 
> By the way FYI:
> Current CUPS upstream is no longer
> https://github.com/apple/cups
> and
> https://www.cups.org
> but nowadays it is
> https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups
> and
> https://openprinting.github.io/cups
> 
> 
> Kind Regards
> Johannes Meixner

Thank you for the pointers.

The example "http://server.domain:631/printers/funprinter1000" from 
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printing_from_Windows_to_Linux#Send_data_via_LPD_protocol_or_IPP 
is what I am trying to use because we want to close SMB traffic on these 
clients. Especially the really old ones that can't be upgraded to modern 
computers/Windows OS.

What I don't fully understand is the RAW queue here. Is the idea to set 
up a RAW queue from CUPS->printer and then use IPP from Windows->CUPS, 
but with printer specific printer driver installed in Windows?

I think that ideally, we should not have a printer specific driver in 
Windows, so that we can use CUPS to handle the printer specifics. But 
perhaps this is not possible?

Regards,
Forza

Re: [Printing-architecture] What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Johannes Meixner]

Hello,

On 2022-04-20 09:35, Forza wrote (excerpt):
> What I don't fully understand is the RAW queue here.
> Is the idea to set up a RAW queue from CUPS->printer and then
> use IPP from Windows->CUPS, but with printer specific printer
> driver installed in Windows?

Yes, and the reasons are described in the section
"Why Windows clients have a printer driver installed" in
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printing_from_Windows_to_Linux


Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
-- 
SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH
Maxfeldstr. 5 - 90409 Nuernberg - Germany
(HRB 36809, AG Nuernberg) GF: Ivo Totev

Re: [Printing-architecture] What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Forza]

On 4/20/22 09:58, Johannes Meixner wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> On 2022-04-20 09:35, Forza wrote (excerpt):
>> What I don't fully understand is the RAW queue here.
>> Is the idea to set up a RAW queue from CUPS->printer and then
>> use IPP from Windows->CUPS, but with printer specific printer
>> driver installed in Windows?
> 
> Yes, and the reasons are described in the section
> "Why Windows clients have a printer driver installed" in
> https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Printing_from_Windows_to_Linux
> 
> I understand that Windows needs rendering on the client side. So in my 
case this case, I think the best solution is to continue to use the "MS 
Publisher Imagesetter" printer driver. It generates PS output which CUPS 
is supporting. The driver is "plain" with no options to set duplex etc 
which is what I wanted to achieve.

I wonder how Windows is handling IPP Everywhere (driverless) printers in 
general though? Does Windows have some method to detect options and 
toner/ink levels from IPP Everywhere printers without a native driver?

Thanks
Forza

Re: [Printing-architecture] What windows driver to use with a CUPS IPP server?

[Michael Sweet]

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Forza,

> On Apr 21, 2022, at 1:14 AM, Forza <forza@tnonline.net> wrote:
> ...
> I wonder how Windows is handling IPP Everywhere (driverless) printers in general though? Does Windows have some method to detect options and toner/ink levels from IPP Everywhere printers without a native driver?

Yes, Windows 10 and higher has an "IPP Class Driver" that works with IPP printers.  Aside from some media size and resolution support issues (which Microsoft is actively working on) the basic driver works quite well and is part of their Azure-based Universal Printing solution (which also uses IPP).

________________________
Michael Sweet




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