Allowing Non-Admins to add Printers

[christinehunt1]

I have students (with non-admin rights) wanting to add their own personal printers at home, but they are prompted with the admin logon. How can I allow this?

Can someone give me step-by-step instructions? I'm new to all of this! Thanks!

[CasperSally]

search jamfnation for lpadmin, should find a script that will work for you.

[davidacland · Accepted solution]

Hi @christinehunt1

We've blogged how to do that here. It's the first section of the article "Add Everyone to Printer Admins".

You add the script to Casper and create a policy to run it on the target Macs.

[christinehunt1]

Thanks! I think it's working now!

[bentoms]

@christinehunt1 just a caveat.. That script will allow users to add & remove printers. But if they need to install additional software when installing a printer they will still run into issues as the software will likely need admin rights.

[dwaterbury]

I tried this script with our 10.11.5 build. Although I can add printers to the standard user account, the printer list in System Preferences shows blank. However, when I open an application and go to File-->Print, I can see the printers in the drop down list. Does anyone have any ideas how to make the printer list appear in System Preferences so that then they can also be removed? Thank you.

[LeeGibson]

This is an old thread and the enable lpadmin script is also from 2016. Does anyone know if this script is working on High Sierra or especially Mojave?

[Sandy]

I found this, works in Mojave

!/bin/bash

Workaround as shown in https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/discussions/19050/add-wifi-networks-without-admin-privileges

Allows non-admin users to add printers and manage their WiFi configuration.

For WiFi

/usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.preferences.network allow
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.services.systemconfiguration.network allow

For printing

/usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.preferences.printing allow
/usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.print.operator allow
/usr/sbin/dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a everyone -t group lpadmin
/usr/sbin/dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a everyone -t group _lpadmin

exit 0;

[Peter_R_T]

I am trying this on 10.14.6 but without any luck. Does anyone have any other ideas?

TIA,
Peter

[chrisB]

@LeeGibson

We use the following command line since 2014 and it's still working (with Catalina):

dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a everyone -t group lpadmin

[Peter_R_T]

@chrisB Thanks for your fast reply.
In this case, I have to admit that it was an error 40...
Your command line was one of the things I had tried - I just hadn't noticed that even though the padlock was still there after running it, I am now able to change things without authorizing.
So to sum up - implemented with success.
Cheers,
Peter