Karl Tinsley's picture
Karl Tinsley - Fri, 2014/05/09 - 19:41

I am fairly new to linux, but have really appreciated TKL for providing me the opportunity to gain experience with it, and also to try out so many neat appliances. Of course, being new to linux, I sometimes run into hurdles that can drive me crazy. This is one of those.

I have just set up TKL fileserver and gotten all my file shares set up and working. Now I would like to set up my Samsung printer and share it. I have the printer driver and appropriate device-specific (PPD) file, I just want to get the printer set up and running, so I can share it. I have spent hours searching for information on configuring cups and setting up the printer, but the problem is that most of the instructions available use the web interface for cups, and I cannot connect to it. I get an "unable to establish connection" error.

I have a feeling it should work if I accessed it from the local machine running my file server, but it has no GUI or browser. 

Is there a way to install a browser or GUI on the fileserver? Or some simple way to access the cups admin remotely?

Thanks for any help!

Forum: 
Support
Tags: 
fileserver
printer
cups
John Carver's picture

John Carver - Sat, 2014/05/10 - 07:15

Karl, By default, cupsd only allows access from the localhost address.  You didn't say how you installed cups on the fileserver.  I assume you did something like

# apt-get update
# apt-get install cups

Allow remote administration:

Edit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf

change
    Listen    localhost:631
to
    Listen    *:631

add
    # Allow any servername...
    ServerAlias   *
below 
    WebInterface  Yes

in three sections labeled "Restrict access to ..." add
    Allow @LOCAL
following
    Order allow,deny

Restart the software:

# service cups restart

You should now be able to browse to fileserver:631 from a PC or workstation on your local network.  It is not recommended to allow access from hosts outside your local network.

If you need remote access and have ssh access, then use an ssh tunnel.  From a Linux workstation:

$ sudo ssh -f -N root@fileserver -L 666:localhost:631

Then browse to localhost:666 on the workstation.  I had to use a different port because port 631 on the workstation was also being used by cups.

Hope this helps.

Information is free, knowledge is acquired, but wisdom is earned.

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