printers - authentication required

joelande
Contributor

We had a lab printer go offline for a period of time.

During this time some of the computers in the lab attempted to print.

Somehow this stopped the print que.

When the print que is stopped and a student attempts to print they can add
the job to the que or start the que, etc.

Now that the printer is back online, when some students attempt to print,
they get that same dialog box asking if they want to start the que or add
the job to the que.

However, and action they take requires an administrative password.

So ultimately, the question is, what is the easiest way to resolve this
issue?

P.S. - Can you confirm my understanding of print ques:
(A) The print que is the engine that manages print jobs and sends them
from the user to the printer. It is a computer-level (not a user-level)
process.

(B) The state of the print que (stopped, started, paused etc), is a
setting that is stored at the computer level, and would affect anybody
(any account) using that computer

(C) The print job, is the actual document being printed, and is stored at
the user level.

Assuming A & B above are true, (i) anybody who logs into at a computer 1 which has a que that is stopped,
will not be able to print.
(ii) If the user moves to computer 2, their job will print (without being
sent again).
(iii) Once the que is resumed on computer 1, when students with pending
jobs log in, their jobs will print
-- I am not sure if items (ii) and (iii) happen automatically or the next
time they initiate a print job

P.P.S. - Can anyone recommend a good resource on how printers work in OSX
that can help clear up these types of issues?

''''''' ^-O-O-^
+----oOO----(_)--------------+
| Joel Anderson |
| Director of Technology |
| Hibbing Public Schools |
| www.hibbing.k12.mn.us | +----------------------oOO---+ ||| || || ooO Ooo

1 REPLY 1

winkelhe
New Contributor

I'm assuming your using Leopard which is when the OS started requiring system level access to add and remove printers and the owner of a job is the only one(without being an admin)who could start/restart/stop or cancel the job. That being the case I have had succes editing the cups.conf file. Here is the excerpt from the conf file that requires editing or you could just comment the whole thing out. As far as recommended reading, just open a browser and go to 127.0.0.1:631(localhost:631) and check out the documentation/help tab. Or go visit the cups.org website.

# All administration operations require an administrator to authenticate... <Limit CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer CUPS-Delete-Printer CUPS-Add-Modify-Class CUPS-Delete-Class CUPS-Set-Default> AuthType Default Require user @SYSTEM Order deny,allow </Limit>

# All printer operations require a printer operator to authenticate... <Limit Pause-Printer Resume-Printer Enable-Printer Disable-Printer Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job Hold-New-Jobs Release-Held-New-Jobs Deactivate-Printer Activate-Printer Restart-Printer Shutdown-Printer Startup-Printer Promote-Job Sched$ AuthType Default Require user @AUTHKEY(system.print.admin) @admin @lpadmin Order deny,allow </Limit>

# Only the owner or an administrator can cancel or authenticate a job... <Limit Cancel-Job CUPS-Authenticate-Job> Require user @OWNER @AUTHKEY(system.print.admin) @admin @lpadmin Order deny,allow </Limit>

*Please note my phone numbers and email address have changed*
Eric Winkelhake
MundocomWW
312.222.8940
312.504.5155
eric.winkelhake at mundocomww.com