Printing at CERN¶

Printing at CERN for Linux Systems

Documentation on this page is intended to be used on CERN-supported Linux versions.

If you are using other Linux version, please look here.

Introduction

CERN's Print Service provides print spooling through a set of print servers. Access to the print servers is made through the LPD protocol. Files to be printed have to be already encoded in a page description language (notably PostScript), or may be simple text files. Conversion to PostScript / PCL must be done on the client side.

System Configuration

If not already installed, please install on your system the lpadmincern package, as root:

on SLC6:

# yum install lpadmincern

To list available printers in building XX run:

# /usr/sbin/lpadmincern --list --building XX

To install all printers available in building XX run as root:

# /usr/sbin/lpadmincern --add --building XX

To set the system-wide default printer to XX-YY-ZZ run as root:

# /usr/sbin/lpadmincern --default XX-YY-ZZ

For more information about lpadmincern, please see:

man lpadmincern

or

# /usr/sbin/lpadmincern --help

on your system.

After installing your printer(s) with lpadmincern, you may fine-tune their configuration (default duplex / color / resolution / paper tray / etc...) by using:

# /usr/sbin/system-config-printer

User Specific Configuration

Printer configuration performed according to instructions above becomes system-wide for all users of given system. In addition to this it is possible to change/override some printer settings for each user account modifying:

~/.cups/lpoptions

file.

For example adding line:

Default XX-YY-ZZ

in that file will override the system-wide default printer by a user specified one: XX-YY-ZZ.

To see currently set options for installed printer XX-YY-ZZ, use:

# /usr/bin/lpoptions -p XX-YY-ZZ

To see all allowable options for installed printer XX-YY-ZZ, use:

# /usr/bin/lpoptions -p XX-YY-ZZ -l

For more information see:

man lpoptions

on your system.

Jaroslaw.Polok@cern.ch