samba - Aug 2002 - (2.2.5) Does AUTO PRINTER DRIVERS work - definitive statement please

Hi,  could someone who is close to the Samba development
make a comment about the automatic printer drivers features in Samba 2.2.5
I've been trying to get this working unsuccessfully, and have seen many
messages posted from people having trouble with this feature.
Not sure if this is an unnusual number of people with problems, but
it seems like it ( I could be too close to the problem to see clearly).

Strange thing is, I'm sure I had this working in 2.2.2, but now can't
get it
working using
the same conf and setup with 2.2.5.
I've also seen this commment made a few times by other people.

Any comments welcome, set me straight - is it just me or is there a problem.
Just need to know whether to keep looking for solutions, or hang fire and
wait for someone to do the hard work for me.

I'm using Solaris 8 and mostly HP drivers.

Really appreciate all the hard work put in by the Samba development team.
You guys are tops.

thanks
-peter.





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On Fri, 16 Aug 2002 peter.a.bryant@mainroads.qld.gov.au wrote:
> Hi, could someone who is close to the Samba development make a comment
> about the automatic printer drivers features in Samba 2.2.5 I've been
> trying to get this working unsuccessfully, and have seen many messages
> posted from people having trouble with this feature. Not sure if this is
> an unnusual number of people with problems, but it seems like it ( I
> could be too close to the problem to see clearly).
It does work in 2.2.5 as long as you add the couple patches I've posted in 
the past.  You can download them from 

  http://download.samba.org/samba/ftp/patches/jerry/post-2.2.5

Or you can grab the latest SAMBA_2_2.  There will be a 2.2.6 release
in the next few weeks.  Most of the Samba team will be at a CIFS interop 
conference (www.cifs2002.org) next week so things are a little hectic.

Oh and it seems that many more people are trying to use it now which 
would account for the increased number of postings about it.

Trust me...it does work :-)
> Strange thing is, I'm sure I had this working in 2.2.2, but now
can't
> get it working using the same conf and setup with 2.2.5. I've also seen
> this commment made a few times by other people.
2.2.2 didn't save printing information IIRC (or was that 2.2.3a?)

> Any comments welcome, set me straight - is it just me or is there a
> problem. Just need to know whether to keep looking for solutions, or
> hang fire and wait for someone to do the hard work for me.
It works, it's just that the entire process is horribly more 
complicated than anyone ever expected (to devleop and to administer).

Couple of comments (which I fairly sure you've followed)

(1) Make sure you follow the Printing Chapyer in the pdf file
    explictly.
(2) Make sure you actually upload the drivers on the server
(3) Make sure you initialize the devicemode of the 
    printer on the server.
> I'm using Solaris 8 and mostly HP drivers.
Most of my testing is on x86.  However, there are no byte ordering
issues that I am aware of.

I am working on one issue where certain features are not available
to users even though they are set on the server (forms, duplex, etc...)
> Really appreciate all the hard work put in by the Samba development
> team. You guys are tops.
Thanks. :-)  Now if only those printers....






cheers, jerry
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Hewlett-Packard                                     http://www.hp.com
 SAMBA Team                                       http://www.samba.org
 --                                            http://www.plainjoe.org
 "Sam's Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours" 2ed.      ISBN
0-672-32269-2
 --"I never saved anything for the swim back." Ethan Hawk in Gattaca--

Thanks Jerry, I wasn't aware of the patches - must have missed that on the
list.

One other thing I wasn't aware of, and could someone please explain.
Comment number (3) in your email -
"Make sure you initialize the devicemode of the printer on the
server."

Could someone tell me how I would do this?  (sorry, my knowledge is not
impressive)

No wonder it wasn't working for me hey?

Couple of not so important things ...

1.  Are these things documented somewhere besides the mailing list?

2.  Would it be possible to have the documentation page divided into
subheadings,
     so that, e.g.  all the printing doco. is in one place   - Just a thought
for when things
are a bit quiet around SAMBA H.Q.   :-)  (yeah like when?)

Thanks for your help.  Sure I will get it working now that I have this
knowledge.

Once again - big kudos to the Samba team.
I am amazed at all the things you guys manage to achieve
(including helping newbies like me)

thanks

-pete.





> Hi, could someone who is close to the Samba development make a comment
> about the automatic printer drivers features in Samba 2.2.5 I've been
> trying to get this working unsuccessfully, and have seen many messages
> posted from people having trouble with this feature. Not sure if this is
> an unnusual number of people with problems, but it seems like it ( I
> could be too close to the problem to see clearly).
It does work in 2.2.5 as long as you add the couple patches I've posted in
the past.  You can download them from

  http://download.samba.org/samba/ftp/patches/jerry/post-2.2.5

Or you can grab the latest SAMBA_2_2.  There will be a 2.2.6 release
in the next few weeks.  Most of the Samba team will be at a CIFS interop
conference (www.cifs2002.org) next week so things are a little hectic.

Oh and it seems that many more people are trying to use it now which
would account for the increased number of postings about it.

Trust me...it does work :-)
> Strange thing is, I'm sure I had this working in 2.2.2, but now
can't
> get it working using the same conf and setup with 2.2.5. I've also seen
> this commment made a few times by other people.
2.2.2 didn't save printing information IIRC (or was that 2.2.3a?)

> Any comments welcome, set me straight - is it just me or is there a
> problem. Just need to know whether to keep looking for solutions, or
> hang fire and wait for someone to do the hard work for me.
It works, it's just that the entire process is horribly more
complicated than anyone ever expected (to devleop and to administer).

Couple of comments (which I fairly sure you've followed)

(1) Make sure you follow the Printing Chapyer in the pdf file
    explictly.
(2) Make sure you actually upload the drivers on the server
(3) Make sure you initialize the devicemode of the
    printer on the server.
> I'm using Solaris 8 and mostly HP drivers.
Most of my testing is on x86.  However, there are no byte ordering
issues that I am aware of.

I am working on one issue where certain features are not available
to users even though they are set on the server (forms, duplex, etc...)
> Really appreciate all the hard work put in by the Samba development
> team. You guys are tops.
Thanks. :-)  Now if only those printers....


cheers, jerry





************************************************************
Opinions contained in this e-mail do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of the Queensland Department of Main Roads,
Queensland Transport or National Transport Secretariat, or
endorsed organisations utilising the same infrastructure.
If you have received this electronic mail message in error,
please immediately notify the sender and delete the message
from your computer.
************************************************************

Thanks, I obviously don't have the latest copy of the How-To.

I just tried to access the PDF version on the net (from a couple of different
mirrors)
and it was 404 not found.  Is the HTML version identical?

Sorry, I will try to stop asking questions now.

-peter.



> One other thing I wasn't aware of, and could someone please explain.
> Comment number (3) in your email -
> "Make sure you initialize the devicemode of the printer on the
server."
>
> Could someone tell me how I would do this?  (sorry, my knowledge is not
> impressive)
>
> No wonder it wasn't working for me hey?
>
> Couple of not so important things ...
>
> 1.  Are these things documented somewhere besides the mailing list?
See the Samba-HOWTO-Collection.pdf file in the lates Samba release.
:-)
> 2.  Would it be possible to have the documentation page divided into
> subheadings,
>      so that, e.g.  all the printing doco. is in one place   - Just a
thought
> for when things
> are a bit quiet around SAMBA H.Q.   :-)  (yeah like when?)
The PDF file is divided up into chapters.  The driver download is all in a
chapter by it self.






cheers, jerry
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Hewlett-Packard                                     http://www.hp.com
 SAMBA Team                                       http://www.samba.org
 --                                            http://www.plainjoe.org
 "Sam's Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours" 2ed.      ISBN
0-672-32269-2
 --"I never saved anything for the swim back." Ethan Hawk in Gattaca--







************************************************************
Opinions contained in this e-mail do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of the Queensland Department of Main Roads,
Queensland Transport or National Transport Secretariat, or
endorsed organisations utilising the same infrastructure.
If you have received this electronic mail message in error,
please immediately notify the sender and delete the message
from your computer.
************************************************************

For what it's worth, I can attest that auto printer driver downloads DOES
work under Red Hat 7.3 with the Samba 2.2.3 packages that come with it by
default.  That combination is working fine for me, at least as a print
server.  I have had no success in getting 2.2.5 to work downloading printer
drivers automatically, but I have not tried to apply Gerry's patches. 
I'll
wait for 2.2.6 and see.

Thanks, and good luck!

Chris
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We have a printer here(Xerox Maxlin Phase 860) that we are able to
install the print drivers automatically, but the printer has extra
features, such as ink tracking, per user, and extra management that is
nice for schools and businesses to track usage by users.

Is there any way to automatically start an executable instead fo
installing the printer dirvers...? We would like to auto-start the setup
program from the printer driver disk....

or, we could install it the way it needs to be installed on one of our
workstations, and use our imagecast software to create an auto-install
file, that duplicates that installation on any pc that auto-install file
is run on...

We only want this to happen if a user browses to the printer, and tries
to use it....

Is this possible?

Barry Smoke
District Network Adminsitrator
Bryant Public Schools

On Thu, 15 Aug 2002 jerry@samba.org wrote:

 > I am working on one issue where certain features are not available
 > to users even though they are set on the server (forms, duplex,
 > etc...)

What is the status of that issue?

We run Samba-2.6.0pre2 under Sol8-sparc with Windows 2000 SP2 clients 
and Lexmark printers. We use the autoprinter driver function and it 
works better now with 2.6.0pre2 than it did with 2.5.0. It crashes the 
clients spoolsv.exe ~ every 10th login. We have activated the Recovery 
function of the Print Spooler service under Win2k so it's not that a big 
of problem.
Every time a user logon to the domain, the logon script sets up the 
printers (connects to them) with the following command:

start /MIN rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /q /in /u 
/n\\dune\Lexmark-uppe /j"LanMan Print Services"


The real problem we have is that only root (administrator) can see (and 
set) the correct settings for the printer (Forms, duplex, memory etc.) 
but a regular user can only see the default printer driver settings (as 
set by the installationprogram for the drivers) and not change them and 
since they are wrong no user can do duplex printing right now.
It would be so nice to avoid installing the printers local on every 
client but that may be our only way out if this problem won't be fixed.

If any more information is needed to debug this I am willing to share 
configuration and everything. I am willing to try new code as well.

Regards,
Fredrik Aminoff
System administrator
Link?ping University
Sweden