Printing and Macs, what is everyone doing?

[KCH080208]

Just wanting to know what people are doing in their environment for macs and printing?

What vendors are you using if any?

How are you setting up the printers?

Any ideas would be appreciated. We are looking at changing the way we do things and want to know what everyone else in this world is doing.

[CasperSally]

Our printers are on windows servers, we use ezip to make them available to Mac users via a website where staff members click on a link to install whichever printer they want. The zidget helper is part of our image.

Students get printers via JSS policy (printers added by me in casper admin, techs in each school manage their own student printer policies beyond that).

[Joseph_Morris]

I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 running Papercut. It's set up using three HP Laserjet 4015s rolled into a Printer Pool that is pushed out through the JSS, and tied to AD. Only students are allowed to print to this printer pool, and students are able to print to their home printers as well. If there is a printer in the classroom that a student needs to use, they are able to add that printer also.

[mpermann]

We're using a mix of HP LaserJet printers and Ricoh and Konica Minolta MFP devices. We do not use any print servers. We just print directly to the printers. All of the needed print drivers are either installed at imaging time or have been installed with policies through Casper. The actual setup of the printer is done through Self Service by the end user. I've recently switched to using the lpadmin command to add printers. I have a policy for each printer with the Files and Processes setup to run an lpadmin command which adds the printer and sets any defaults. So far it seems to work well.

[jkent]

At a school with about 8 computer labs printing to networked (print server) HPs and local (usb) Epson 3880s. Printers are added using casper... nothing special. We use Papercut to charge students for prints based on print area for the Epson photo printers and color/bw on the HPs. For the most part this has worked out very well. In this environment Papercut has proved invaluable.

We do use the Ricoh print service to handle maintenance and supplies for the HPs but I'm not at all sure if it's saving the organization money.

[nateburt]

Windows servers; Papercut; varied manufacturers of printers, but best experiences with HP & Kyocera at this time; we are working on self-service policies with bare-bones drivers & print queue (mostly lpd). Using Papercut "WebPrint" for personal computer printing to public printers - very popular option which doesn't scale well! Testing Papercut client

[Johnny_Kim]

We are using Sharp copiers/printers with OSA SmartLook (Follow me printing) on Win 08 server r2 and also 26 print queues. Drivers are preinstalled with the image.

Teachers/staff memebers goes on the Self Service to add the printer based on the initial of their last name (John Doe would add "Printer D"). Once they send a print job, they can go to any Sharp copiers in the district to retrieve their jobs.

[KCH080208]

Is there a way around kerberos?

Currently we have Windows servers with all of our printers on it, and through our casper server i push out each printer based on what policy they are in under casper. I have been using ksmb but am trying to decide if there is a difference between using that or smb and then in CUPS changing the authentication in the printer policy to kerberos.

We also use equitrac for students and or staff/faculty who have to print to multiple budgets.

Do people have to authenticate every time they print? Are they ok with this? If they dont what ways are available other than kerberos if any?

Just running into weird issues with kerberos as its tied to us mounting our network drives and the ticket just never seems to work.

Ill create a different discussion with that as it is different story for us

[emily]

We install all printer drivers on all Macs, then just put the printers in Self Service. They can either add the printer via Self Service or through the print dialog. If they do it manually, we have instructions on an internal Help Desk website.

[rtrouton]

I have a couple of posts available on how I’m deploying printers and drivers in my shop:

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/deploying-canon-print-drivers-with-printer-setups-via-ca...

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/02/10/deploying-xerox-print-drivers-on-a-per-os-basis-via-casp...

[Aaron]

All our printers are on Windows servers, but not all of them are used by Mac users. The ones that are I just make available via Self Service.

The way I do it (not necessarily the right way, but it seems to work for me) is I install the required printers and drivers on my test Mac with the type "Windows printer via spoolss" (this way everyone prints to the queue), and then add them into Casper using the "Add Printers" function in Casper Admin. Then Self Service. All users log in using AD credentials, so that takes care of authentication. I infrequently have issues where a print job struggles with authentication (so it's held locally in queue) but removing and readding the printer seems to fix that.

[Kumarasinghe]

By the Grace of God we have a custom solution!
The idea and implementation steps given by The Lord God Almighty and I have to give all the Glory and Honour and Praise and Thanks to Him and Him alone!
Thank You Jesus!

We have about 1800 AD printer queues (as of today) and we support most of them. Printer capture and deploy is impossible for us with that amount of printers.

The solution we have is to search AD LDAP and install the printers based on location details stored in LDAP.
We have a Casper Self Service policy which will give a nice guided GUI and will install the selected printer using above method.

Thanks

[jhbush]

@KCH080208 have a look at this thread https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=4075 for solution for kerberized printing.

[kwsenger]

In our school district we install all HP Laserjets and Sharp copiers via Self Service.
We use the pre-packaged drivers from HP and Sharp. Drivers are installed on each device via a recurring check-in (Once per computer) policy for each driver.

Printers are installed on a single Mac and then installed in Casper Admin. This process is right out of the Casper Administrators guide and works well.

The final stage is Students and staff installing from Self Service. If a print job needs to be cleared we can clear from the device. This is an IP based solution and there is not a print queue which stores print jobs before they are released.

We recently unmapped an older device and mapped a new device on over 60 devices via a Smart Group without any user interaction.
Very slick.

[KCH080208]

@jhbush1973 i see your bash script and i understand what it is suppose to do but not sure how to implement it. I am still pretty new to apple so any further direction is helpful. I understand to put that bash script in the respective place but not sure about the launcher agent.

Do i basically once figured out put those in the right places. Create a dmg or package of it and then push it out after imaging and fill the user templates so that anytime a user logs in he/she gets those files.

Basically like the first user in the link you sent me, casper admin doesnt capture me changing the policy from default to kerberos.

[lehmanp00]

We have 182 printer queues divided between 2 Win2008R2 print servers. We have HP printers and Xerox copiers. Drivers are installed during imaging and then printers installed with Profile Manager. (We only use JSS with iPads)
We have frustrating issues with the Xerox stuff. Their drivers suck.

[Chris_Hafner]

many options. We are mainly HP and Xerox, however our student users are always adding damned near everything. So I use the following commands as part of my first run script:

# Add all users to dseditgroup and give all print privledges
dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a everyone -t group lpadmin

defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.printuitool.agent.plist Disabled -bool YES
defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.printuitool.agent.plist EnableTransactions -bool NO

# Allow all users to access TimeMachine, Energy Saver and the Print preference pane
security authorizationdb write system.preferences allow
security authorizationdb write system.print.operator allow

[michaelhusar]

We have Windows2012 printer servers and Kerberos. The users have lpadmin rights. (dseditgroup -o edit -a everyone -t group _lpadmin)
Every client gets the drivers and a LaunchAgent that calls a "printer-connect-script" at login. (RunAtLoad)
We have a couple of smart groups depending on department, building, extension attributes,... to determine which machine gets what "printer-connect-script". The scripts hold the lpadmin -p yourprinter -v smb://printserver/yourprinter -D printerdescription -E -P /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/CNADVC5250X1.PPD.gz -o auth-info-required=negotiate

[Catcoteacademy]

@KCH080208

My method to managing Windows Printers on Mac Computers and by passing authentication:

1. Install printers on the Windows print server with what ever driver you like, (PCL i went for)
2. Install the printer on a Mac Server using IP Printing (LDP).
3. Edit the driver for the printers defaults (Literally open it up and change duplex to 1-Sided, collate to yes, e.t.c (These are just examples please edit the driver as much as you require)
4. Then Add the printers into casper using the LDP printer address (ldp://10.xx.xx.xx/) and upload the driver (When naming your printer use either _ or - don't include spaces when separating words.
5. Create Smart/Static Groups to automate your printing needs (Create Static Rooms, and Smart Groups to show when printers which should have certain ones don't)

Now you should find your printing will work much better and should not ask for any authentication. Another positive of this method is the fact you can see the spooling percentage of jobs which i also think is ideal when spoiling 2+ GB of pictures as your unaware of the progress.