samba - Oct 2015 - Debug Samba/CUPS printing

Hi all,

I am currently inspecting a problem with Windows7 / Samba / CUPS printing.

On one printer of our company the printjobs are getting heavily delayed. 
The jobs are started from Windows 7 Workstations.

Tcpdump seems to show, that the jobs are handed through from

Windows 7 Client -> Samba server -> CUPS server -> printer and no 
packets seem to bypass those stages. (e.g. no direct packets from 
Windows Client to printer, oder CUPS server)

My first question: Am I correct with my asumption that the jobs are 
passed through the four stages "Windows 7 Client -> Samba server ->
CUPS
server -> printer"?

I I am right, all jobs should be handled on each intermediate server. On 
the CUPSs server the logs are quite good to read and at that server I 
can at least roughly determine at what time the jobs are processed. 
Including information about username and filename.

But looking into the Samba logs I am really confused. I determined quite 
some messages that seem to be interesting, but nothing which definitely 
seems to say: "Job arrived/Job processed/Job forwarded". Is there some
other source of information to query the necessary information?

So my second question is: How can I best determine on the Samba server 
when a concrete job had been processed.

---

The Samba server smb.conf options concerning CUPS/loggin setup are like 
following:

	log file = /var/log/samba/smb-%m-%U.log
         log level = 4
	max log size = 3000
	printcap cache time = 5
	printcap name = cups
	cups server = m01cups01
	logon path 	logon home 	domain logons = Yes
	printer admin = root, administrator, @root, @domain_admins, ...
	# security = user und map to guest = Bad User sind wichtig fuer Point 
and Print
	# Point and Print testen, ob es noch tut.
	# Druckerkram fuer Point and Print
	load printers = yes
	printing = cups
	printcap name = cups



[printers]
         comment = All Printers
         path = /var/spool/samba

         # writeable = No hinzugefuegt wegen Point and Print
         writeable = No

         # printer admin hinzugefuegt wegen Point and Print
         # Point-and-Print-Beispiel-smb.conf enthaelt nur printer admin 
= root
         printer admin = root, @it, domadm, ...

         # Hinweis: create mask ist bei der 
Point-and-Print-Beispiel-smb.conf nicht gesetzt,
         #          kann also sein, dass man es deaktivieren muss
         create mask = 0700

         printable = Yes

         # Hinweis: print ok ist bei der 
Point-and-Print-Beispiel-smb.conf nicht gesetzt,
         #          kann also sein, dass man es deaktivieren muss
         print ok = Yes

         guest ok = Yes
         browseable = No


[print$]
         comment = Printer Drivers

         # Hinweis: path ist in der Point-and-Print-Beispiel-smb.conf 
/etc/samba/printers,
         #          sollte aber keine Rolle spielen
         path = /var/lib/samba/printers

         # Hinweis: write list ist in der 
Point-and-Print-Beispiel-smb.conf root, @smbprintadm,
         #          sollte aber keine Rolle spielen

         write list = root, @it, domadm,

         browseable = yes
         guest ok = yes
         read only = yes

---

Many thanks in advance.

Kind regards,

Melanie

Hello Melanie,

Am 21.10.2015 um 16:17 schrieb Melanie Desaive:
> My first question: Am I correct with my asumption that the jobs are
> passed through the four stages "Windows 7 Client -> Samba server
-> CUPS
> server -> printer"?
If you have configured that way, then it's correct ;-)
Seriously, that are the typical steps, when you print through a Samba
printserver.


> But looking into the Samba logs I am really confused. I determined quite
> some messages that seem to be interesting, but nothing which definitely
> seems to say: "Job arrived/Job processed/Job forwarded". Is there
some
> other source of information to query the necessary information?
Samba doesn't log print jobs. At least not at debug level 1, which is
what you usually have on production machines, if you don't want to fill
your HDD with logs :-)


> So my second question is: How can I best determine on the Samba server
> when a concrete job had been processed.
It's processed by Samba, when CUPS received the job. :-)



You can pipe the job through a script, that does the loggin. As an
inspiration, how to achieve that, you can look at something I wrote a
while ago for creating a virtual PDF printer
(https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Virtual_PDF_Printer). It was written
for lprng and I never finished to make this work with CUPS, but it could
be a first start for what you want.



Regards,
Marc