1. Printing with Cups Server ZNCUPS
2. Overview of Cups Printing Options on UNIX
3. Printing from Linux Notebooks
4. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Printing with Cups Server ZNCUPS

The Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) is the central printing system on all UNIX machines at DESY Zeuthen.

1.1 default printer: set LPDEST to your favorite printer

• edit $HOME/.zprofile and add or modify the line
  export LPDEST=your_printer
• make a new login or run in every window
  . .zprofile
• please check your .zshenv too and remove LPDEST entries

• edit $HOME/.login and add or modify the line
  setenv LPDEST your_printer
• make a new login or run in every window
  source .login
• please check your .cshrc too and remove LPDEST entries

1.2 Printing with the CLI (command line interface)

• using lpr:
  lpr -Pprinter myfile
• using lp:
  lp -dprinter myfile

1.3 Examining the print queue with the CLI

• display a specific queue:
  lpstat -pprinter
• display all available queues:
  lpstat -p
• list all active jobs:
  lpstat -o

1.4 Cancelling of print jobs with the CLI

The CUPS job on the local system gets a job-id which is not suitable for removing a job on the print server. The job-id on the print server is different, it can be displayed using lpstat. After finding out the job-id on the print server you can remove it. Use cancel and no longer lprm for removing your print jobs.
Examples:

• cancel your last job on printer with:
  cancel printer
• cancel specific jobs: first get the job-ids using lpstat, afterwards use cancel:

[myhost] % lpstat -o

znrz1-31                  ottostr           1688576     Thu Jan  4 12:20:51 2007

znrz1-32                  frida            31596544     Thu Jan  4 12:20:55 2007

znrz1-33                  wwinzig           1654900     Thu Jan  4 12:30:57 2007

znrzc-34                  ottostr          61533324     Thu Jan  4 12:32:13 2007

[myhost] % cancel znrz1-31 znrzc-34

2. Overview of Cups Printing Options on UNIX

Printing Options are passed to Cups using the -o Option of lp and lpr:

• lpr -o option1=value1 -o option2=value2 [...] file
• lp -o option1=value1 -o option2=value2 [...] file

For more options and additional information see the "Cups Commandline and Options Manual".

3. Printing from Linux Notebooks

3.1 using cups

Use one of the following two methods to let your local cups communicate with our server. Afterwards you can use cups as described above.

3.1.1 use a global cups-daemon

• If you want your Cupsd to communicate with the server permanently, just add the line Browsepoll zncups.zeuthen.desy.de to /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and restart the cups-deamon by typing /etc/init.d/cups restart as root. From now on, the cups-daemon will comunicate with zncups every time cups is started.
• If you just want to add a printer permanently use the usual "add new printer" dialogue and provide the name of the queue which is the printers name and the IP address of the server
• or run as root
  lpadmin -p <my_printer_name> -E -v
ipp://zncups.zeuthen.desy.de/printers/<printer_name>

3.1.2 bypassing the local cups configuration

passing the servername to the client

• by the variable CUPS_SERVER

CUPS_SERVER=zncups.zeuthen.desy.de # zsh
lpstat -a # to see all printers
lp -d <printer> ...

• by an argument

lpstat -h zncups.zeuthen.desy.de -a # to see all printers
lp -h zncups.zeuthen.desy.de -d <printer> ...

3.1.3 permanent configuration without local cups-daemon

If you have no local cupsd running, just change the Servername directive in /etc/cups/client.conf to zncups.zeuthen.desy.de

3.2 lpr/lp based printing system

If you work with a lpr/lp based subsystem a printcap entry in your /etc/printcap file would probably look like this:
<printer_name>:\
:rm=zncups.zeuthen.desy.de:\
:rp=<printer_name>

4. Frequently Asked Questions

Please read the FAQs here.