Adding a Samba (SMB) Printer

To add a printer which is accessed using the SMB protocol (such as a printer attached to a Microsoft Windows system) click the New button in the main Printer Configuration Tool window. The window shown in Figure 26-2 will appear. Click Next to proceed.

You will see the screen shown in Figure 26-7. Enter a unique name for the printer in the Queue Name text field. The printer name cannot contain spaces and must begin with a letter a through z or A through Z. The valid characters are a through z, A through Z, 0 through 9, -, and _.

Select Windows Printer from the Queue Type menu, and click Next. If the printer is attached to a Microsoft Windows system, choose this queue type.

Text fields for the following options appear as shown in Figure 26-8:

• Share — The name of the shared printer on which you want to print. This name must be the same name defined as the Samba printer on the remote Windows machine. Notice the syntax of //machinename/sharename.

• User — The name of the user you must log in as to access the printer. This user must exist on the Windows system, and the user must have permission to access the printer. The default user name is typically guest for Windows servers, or nobody for Samba servers.

• Host IP — The hostname or IP address of the remote system that is sharing the SMB printer.

• Password — The password (if required) for the user specified in the User field.

• Workgroup — The name of the workgroup on the machine running Samba.

Click the Translate \n => \r\n button to translate the end of line characters to a form that is readable by a Microsoft Windows system.

Click Next to continue.

The next step is to select the type of printer that is connected to the remote SMB system. Skip to the Section called Selecting the Print Driver and Finishing to continue.

Note

If you require a username and password for an SMB (LAN Manager) print queue, they are stored unencrypted in the spool directory, which only root or lp may read. Thus, it is possible for others to learn the username and password if they have root access. To avoid this, the username and password to access the printer should be different from the username and password used for the user's account on the local Red Hat Linux system. If they are different, then the only possible security compromise would be unauthorized use of the printer. If there are file shares from the SMB server, it is recommended that they also use a different password than the one for the print queue.