Hi,
I've been setting up a few printer servers with CUPS. Our public libraries here all run 100% Linux (CentOS 5), so what I do is simply install the printer on one of the machines (with a static IP) and then configure CUPS so it can act as a printer server for Linux clients.
It took me some time to figure this out, and I remember pulling my hair out for a few sunny afternoons, but I eventually got it working. One thing kept me stuck for days, until I finally found the answer on debian-administration.org.
My server machine has an IP of 192.168.1.252/255.255.255.0. There's a Brother laser printer attached to it. The CUPS configuration file is edited so machines on the 192.168.1.* network can use it, and I can also access the CUPS web interface from anywhere. But here's what puzzles me.
In the default cupsd.conf configuration file the 'Listen' directive looks like this:
# Only listen for connections from the local machine. Listen localhost:631 Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock
Here's the oddity: I *have* to specifically add the machine's IP, like this:
Listen localhost:631 Listen 192.168.1.252 Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock
If I don't add this, machines on the network are unable to connect to the server.
Can anybody explain this strange behaviour to me?
Cheers,
Niki