*nix print servers (*nix meaning UNIX,Linux and the BSDs)
Posted by hrudyusa@reddit | linuxadmin | View on Reddit | 25 comments
I am currently revising an old Linux course , which discusses using Linux Boxes as print servers. This, as you probably know, is through CUPS. (CUPS is provided through the good graces of Apple. ;) I suspect that no one uses nix servers. If you do* have print servers, they are provided through the Windows Infrastructure or you are printing directly to network attached printer itself. Am I correct in assuming this?
darthgeek@reddit
BSD isn't Unix or Linux though. And lots of places still use non-Windows print servers because of cost.
hrudyusa@reddit (OP)
Not sure why you think BSD isn’t UNIX. BSD started off as a variant of Unix when the University of California at Berkeley acquired a tape from Bell Labs and started modifying the Unix source code. My first encounter with BSD is as an add-on to our Xenix system running on a PDP-11/44. I believe at the time we got a mag tape with these modifications. Before that, the only editor we had was ed, which was a line oriented editor, much like EDLIN in the MSDOS world. The BSD tape introduced vi which was written by Bill Joy, head of BSD at the time and later became a vice president at Sun Microsystems. Our next system was a Sun Server running SunOS and a Vax running Ultrix. Both these systems were BSD variants. Later I was running OpenBSD on a Sun Workstation. I remember that to change something in the OpenBSD OS, you had to recompile the kernel , just like we did in the SUNOS days. Not sure that this is still the case. If you said that Linux wasn’t Unix I would agree with you , because it is really a Unix work-alike having no AT&T code. There is a famous lawsuit SCO (who owned UNIX at the time) vs IBM that pretty much proves that point. All that is moot these days as AIX, Solaris and HP-UX are pretty much on life support if not abandoned altogether.
bityard@reddit
I don't know what you mean by "no one uses nix servers." Do you mean as a dedicated print server? I mean, some people must?
The main reason to run a print server would be to give network connectivity to a printer that didn't have it. Which is not that uncommon, laser printers can work fine for decades if not neglected. You might also run a print server if you have special requirements like per-user page quotas or to save a copy of everything printed for auditing purposes.
hrudyusa@reddit (OP)
Hi -
Exactly that. I am stating that no one uses a Linux server box to accept jobs from remote Linux or Windows clients. In my experience, if anyone uses a system to handle many print jobs, I would suspect that it would be Windows since most organizations are using Windows Infrastructure and the Windows Admins would most likely setup any print servers for the business. But I really don't know for sure, so I am asking around.
McGlockenshire@reddit
Hell dude, CUPS was the thing that let some of my Windows clients talk to some of my printers!
Old Zebra label printers are workhorses if treated well, and ours were also attached by serial port. We repurposed decommissioned desktops as become print servers, running CUPS, to attach to these printers using known, stable mechanisms, with long term widespread compatability, to any client on our network, including not just local Windows desktops, but to our ERP system as well. (Indirectly, of course, because they were all addressed through a central print server, that again of course, also ran CUPS.)
This was a small shop, varying over a decade between 75 and 120 people. We were absolutely more *nix capable than the average shop at the time, and significantly less Windows-focused, but these things happen, and they happen in the wild, with high frequency. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's bad, or out of style.
GolemancerVekk@reddit
Oh no, on the contrary. CUPS is very easy to set up and use (and free). You can plug a bunch of printers into a Linux box or laptop, install CUPS and configure the printer drivers, then install Avahi (mDNS) and let the CUPS advertise itself on the network. It uses a protocol called IPP nowadays that's built on top of HTTP and most phones and PCs speak it. Long story short everybody on the network will "see" those printers on their device automagically.
cjbarone@reddit
I use CUPS with Windows clients. One print server per building. We're not licensed for Windows Server, so Linux was our choice.
Works very well for us. 300 to 1200 users per building.
mkosmo@reddit
You suspect a lot without any basis for those suspicions.
hrudyusa@reddit (OP)
Sorry, I believe I have a suspicious mind
burps_up_chicken@reddit
I have cups on fedora handling network printing in my house network.
Being able to print docs from your phone is super convenient.
anna_lynn_fection@reddit
Yes. Having a printer installed and shared from Linux/CUPS means you can discover and print to any old printer with a phone or tablet.
Also, it can be handy sometimes to print to cups-pdf from those devices too.
MairusuPawa@reddit
No, Apple bought CUPS: https://www.macrumors.com/2007/07/12/apple-acquired-cups/
and then this: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/jbzd85/cups_has_been_forked_after_apple_supplied_only/
doomygloomytunes@reddit
Bit of an odd statement to be honest, of course it's more common for sharing printers to Windows clients then a Windiws print server.
You seem to forget that there a bunch of a lot more important bulk printing that happens like tax statements, wage slips, bank statements etc. there isn't going to any Windows in the loop in these use cases
hrudyusa@reddit (OP)
Thanks for the update. You are correct that I am not discussing bulk printing. Just normal business cases , perhaps in a research facility where there are Linux Workstations
shamanonymous@reddit
Those are 'normal business cases.' You can't just exclude them simply because it's not one office worker at a computer sending the job.
Ok_Cryptographer8549@reddit
I use a cups server at my home to make my usb printer available on my network.
CUPS is all over. Sure windows is more widespread, but CUPS is great and still oft used
Scared_Bell3366@reddit
I haven't seen a *nix print server in quite some time. Corp environment tend to buy network printers and don't need a print server. CUPS might be bundled with some home routers to offer print sharing. The last print server environment I was in used it for security measures, you had to authenticate with a smart card at the printer to get your printout. The cool thing was you could put your smart card in any printer on the network and it would magically print there. I'm fairly certain that it was Windows Servers providing that service.
hrudyusa@reddit (OP)
Second that- The last time I used a *nix print server, it was DEC Ultrix on a Vax11/780 driving a Dataproducts 1000 lpm printer! Hardly current usage!
algrym@reddit
DECnet!
algrym@reddit
I use CUPS, a Tasmota plug, a cron job, and a network-attached printer to turn my printer on/off when there are print jobs in the queue.
Its the best.
meditonsin@reddit
Nah, CUPS is currently being developed by the OpenPrinting workgroup under the Linux Foundation and has been for a while.
I manage one at a university, in conjunction with Papercut, for semi-public student printers. Works perfectly fine, for hundreds of active users and tens of thousands of printed sheets per year.
jaaydub42@reddit
In general, end user workstation printing is done via Windows Printer servers, because it is in the tool chain of the 1st and 2nd tier support to manage.
However, it is fairly common to have backend CUPS print servers for certain applications where the Windows print server may not be the best fit. I've found this to be a need with certain ERP applications where the print option for certain reports needs system backend printers configured and CUPS is a better fit for managing access to those printers.
michaelpaoli@reddit
These days, it's mostly CUPS, but doesn't mean threre won't be other stuff out there, and perhaps especially so on older and/or non-Linux *nix.
Alas, I sometimes encounter 16+ year old *nix ... and, bloody heck, even in production.
barriolinux@reddit
Blexie@reddit
I have worked somewhere that had next to no Windows aside from desktops, and used a Linux print server that served said Windows clients via iPrint. So yeah, such places do exist.