How do you deploy printer drivers???

[ooshnoo]

We have about 200 printers across the globe, with all users having access to each of them. They are all HP and Xerox.

Setup on clients is done via Self Service, but was curious as to what you guys did for deployment of the drivers.

Do you bake the drivers into your image or imaging workflow, or do you include the driver package in each printer setup policy, so it sets up the printer and installs the driver...which is probably overkill.

Do you have to change any printers in the JSS when a driver package is updated by Apple

[bvrooman]

I use a series of login policies to add printers to the machine based on which AD user is logging in. Each policy is scoped to all of our workstations, but limited to members of the AD group which allows them to access a particular printer on our print server. If the printer requires a driver (which many don't), I have a "Files and Processes" payload that runs a second jamf command with a custom trigger to install the needed driver.

That trigger is configured on a policy for each specific print driver in the environment (for Fiery boxes, or HP raster printers, etc.). Those policies are only scoped to the computers which don't already have them installed.

The end result is that each printer that the current user is able to access is mapped on the machine at login. If no driver is needed (generally meaning they're provided by Apple), that's all that happens. If a driver is needed, it is installed only if it's not already present. This process has worked quite well for us so far.

A separate policy can handle updating the third-party drivers, and Apple's software updates handle the built-in ones.

[alexjdale]

I install the HP driver package during imaging. We recently started switching to Xerox (which has a more confusing set of driver packages) and I install those drivers when the printer add policy is run in Self Service. I suppose I will do a full deployment at some point to baseline everything.

[donmontalvo]

Like @bvrooman mentioned, if the drivers are already included in OS X, shouldn't need to deploy any. Just make sure your admin Mac has the same build that the target computers have. Set up on your Mac, upload using Casper Admin, create policy.

For complex setups like Fiery/Creo, you might need to package/deploy the drivers. Then lpadmin/lpoptions to deal with the specifics that aren't always available through the GUI..or for old Fiery/Creo printers that might not be supported but that you can tinker with settings to get working (like Xerox DocuColor 240 with Fiery).

[ooshnoo]

Thanks fellas. The drivers are not currently in our image, so I'm going to do a mass deployment to all, and leave them out of each printer policy.

Question remains... does pushing out a driver update affect anything with regards to clients with existing printers mapped by JSS?

[donmontalvo]

Maybe not for printers already set up, since CUPS caches the PPD. But if the printer has to be readded it would pull any new driver.

[davidacland]

From what I've seen, the printer settings that get pushed by Casper are fixed to a particular driver file path / driver name. If a different driver gets deployed that changes one of these variables, and removes its predecessor it may break the printing to that specific printer on the Mac.

I haven't heard of the printer settings dynamically switching to a newer installed driver unaided.

I normally deploy the full driver sets for the relevant vendors at imaging time (or as early as possible) so I don't have to worry about it in the policy.

[ooshnoo]

@davidacland That's exactly the scenario I want to avoid...a different driver name.

I'll test the waters and see what happens.
thanks again, fellas.