Configuring Print Services
This section describes how to configure print services in your WAAS network.
Configuration Checklist
Table 13-5
lists the configuration steps you must complete to set up print services in your WAAS network.
Table 13-5 Checklist for Configuring WAAS Print Services
|
Additional Information and Instructions
|
Review the information in the planning section.
|
Before configuring print services in your WAAS network, see the “Planning for Print Services” section.
|
Prepare your WAE device and WAAS Central Manager device for print services.
|
To prepare your WAAS system for print services, you need to specify the WINS server name and NetBIOS name for your WAE device and WAAS Central Manager device. In addition, you also need to enable either the CIFS accelerator or the legacy WAFS edge services on the WAE device. For more information, see the “Preparing your WAE Device and Central Manager for Print Services” section.
|
Create accounts with print admin privileges on the WAE device and the WAAS Central Manager device.
|
To configure print services using the Print Services Administration GUI and to install drivers in the central repository on the WAAS Central Manager device, you need to create an accounts with print admin privileges on each of these devices. For more information, see the “Creating Accounts with Print Admin Privileges” section.
|
Enable print services.
|
By default, the WAAS print services feature is disabled on all WAAS devices. To enable print services, see the “Enabling Print Services” section.
|
Add a printer to the WAAS print server.
|
To add printers to your new WAAS print server, see the “Adding a Printer to the WAAS Print Server” section.
|
Create print clusters (optional).
|
To provide failover functionality to print services, you can combine multiple printers into a print cluster. For more information, see the “Adding Printer Clusters” section.
|
Set up the WAAS Central Manager to be the central driver repository.
|
WAAS allows you to centrally manage all your print drivers from the WAAS Central Manager if it is set up as the main driver repository. For more information, see the “Setting Up the WAAS Central Manager as the Driver Repository” section.
|
Distribute drivers to the WAAS print servers.
|
After you have set up the WAAS Central Manager as the driver repository and have loaded drives into the repository, you can distribute the drivers to all the print servers in your WAAS network. For more information, see the “Distributing Drivers to the WAAS Print Servers” section.
|
Associate the print driver with your printer.
|
After you distribute a driver to a WAAS print server, you need to associate the driver with the correct printer on the WAAS print server. For more information, see the “Associating a Driver with your Printer” section.
|
Initialize each print driver on your WAAS print servers.
|
To prevent printing issues, you need to initialize each print driver before they are installed and used by your branch office clients. For more information, see the “Initializing Print Drivers” section.
|
Add printers to your branch office clients.
|
After the print services have been properly configured, your branch office clients need to add printers using the Microsoft Add Printers wizard. For more information, see the “Adding the WAAS Print Server to Your Branch Office Clients” section.
|
Preparing your WAE Device and Central Manager for Print Services
Before you enable print services, you need to prepare your WAE device and Central Manager by specifying the WINS server name and the NetBIOS name. In addition, you also need to enable either the CIFS accelerator or the legacy WAFS edge services on the WAE device. In some cases, these settings may already have been configured when the WAE device and Central Manager were first set up.
To prepare your WAE device and Central Manager for print services, follow these steps:
Step 1 (Optional) Specify the NetBIOS name of the WAE device:
a. From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
My WAN > Manage Devices
.
b. Click the
Edit
icon next to the WAE device on which you want to enable print services.
c. From the navigation pane, choose
Device Name
> Activation
. The Device Activation window appears.
d. Enter the NetBIOS name of the WAE device in the NetBIOS Name field.
Note If the WAE is operating in nontransparent mode, you must configure identical names for the NetBIOS name and the hostname of the device that you enter in the Name field.
e. Click Submit to save your changes.
Once you enable print services on this WAE device, the NetBIOS name is used as the Print Server name for the device. If you do not specify a NetBIOS name, the hostname of the device is used instead. The hostname of the device is specified on the Activation page, described in the “Modifying Device Properties” section.
To use the CLI to specify the NetBIOS name, use the
windows-domain netbios-name
global configuration command.
Step 2 Specify the NetBIOS name of WAAS Central Manager device:
a. From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
My WAN > Manage Devices
.
b. Click the
Edit
icon next to the WAAS Central Manager device.
c. From the navigation pane, choose
Device Name
> Activation
. The Device Activation window appears.
d. Enter the NetBIOS name of the WAAS Central Manager in the NetBIOS Name field.
e. Click Submit to save your changes.
Step 3 Specify the WINS server name of the WAE device:
a. From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
My WAN > Manage Devices
.
b. Click the
Edit
icon next to the WAE device on which you want to enable print services.
c. From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Network > Windows Name Services
.
d. Enter the name of the WINS server in the WINS Server field.
e. Click
Submit
to save your changes.
To use the CLI to specify the NetBIOS name, use the
windows-domain wins-server
global configuration command.
Step 4 Specify the WINS server name of the WAAS Central Manager device:
a. From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
My WAN > Manage Devices
.
b. Click the
Edit
icon next to the WAAS Central Manager device.
c. From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Network > Windows Name Services
.
d. Enter the name of the WINS server in the WINS Server field.
e. Click
Submit
to save your changes.
Step 5 Enable the CIFS accelerator on the WAE device (or skip to Step 6):
a. From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
My WAN > Manage Devices
.
b. Click the
Edit
icon next to the WAE device on which you want to enable print services.
c. From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Acceleration > Enabled Features
.
d. Check the
CIFS Accelerator
check box.
e. Click
Submit
to save your changes.
Step 6 Enable legacy WAFS edge services on the WAE device (or perform Step 5):
a. From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
My WAN > Manage Devices
.
b. Click the
Edit
icon next to the WAE device on which you want to enable print services.
c. From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Acceleration > Legacy Services > File Services > Edge Configuration
.
d. Check the
Enable Edge Server
check box. The CIFS and QoS configuration settings become enabled. For information on configuring these settings, see the “Configuring the Edge Devices” section.
e. Click
Submit
to save your changes.
Note You must reboot or reload the device after enabling edge services.
Creating Accounts with Print Admin Privileges
To configure print services using the Print Services Administration GUI, you need to create an account with print admin privileges on the WAAS Central Manager device. This account also lets you upload drivers to the central repository.
You also must assign a domain to any user account that has print admin privileges. A domain defines the device groups or WAEs that are accessible by the user. All WAEs to which the user needs access should be members in the assigned domain.
To create an account with print admin privileges on the WAAS Central Manager device, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
Admin > AAA > Users
. The User Accounts window displays all the user accounts on the system.
Step 2 Click the
Create New User Accounts
icon. The Creating New User Account window appears.
Step 3 In the Username field, enter the user account name. User names are case-sensitive and support special characters.
Step 4 Check the
Local User
check box.
Step 5 In the Password field, enter a password for the local user account, and reenter the same password in the Confirm Password field. Passwords are case-sensitive.
Step 6 From the CLI Privilege Level drop-down list, choose either
0 (normal user)
or
15 (super user)
.
Step 7 Check the
Print Admin
check box.
Step 8 (Optional) Fill in the fields in the User Information and Comments section.
Step 9 Click
Submit
to save your changes.
Next you must assign the print role to the account.
Step 10 Click the Role Management tab.
The Role Management for User Account window appears with all configured role names listed.
Step 11 Click the Assign icon (blue cross mark) that appears next to the print role.
Step 12 Click
Submit
.
Next, you must assign a domain to the account.
Step 13 Click the Domain Management tab.
The Domain Management for User Account window appears with all configured domain names listed.
Step 14 Click the Assign icon (blue cross mark) that appears next to the domain that you want to assign to the account. All WAEs to which the user needs access should be members in the assigned domain.
Step 15 Click
Submit
.
For more information about creating accounts on the WAAS Central Manager device, see the “Creating a New Account” section.
To create an account with print admin privileges (privilege level 15) from the CLI, you can use the
username
global configuration command.
Enabling Print Services
You must use the WAE Device Manager GUI to enable print services on a WAE.
You can enable print services on any WAE, but you cannot enable print services on the WAAS Central Manager. Once you enable print services, the branch WAE becomes a WAAS print server and an anonymous FTP user account is created on the device. This FTP account is used to access print drivers on the WAAS Central Manager.
To enable print services on a branch WAE, follow these steps:
Step 1 Log into the WAE Device Manager GUI by going to the following URL:
https://
wae-ip-address
/mgr
wae-ip-address
is the IP address of the branch WAE that you want to enable with print services.
Step 2 Choose
Configuration
from the Cisco WAE menu, and click the
Print Services
tab.
The Print Services window appears. (See Figure 13-2.)
Figure 13-2 Print Services Window
Step 3 Check the
Print services enabled
check box to enable print services.
Step 4 (Optional) Enter a comment in the Comment field.
This comment string is visible next to the print server when users are browsing in Windows Explorer.
Step 5 Click
Save
to restart print services.
Upon restart, the Open link for the Print Services Administration GUI is enabled. Once print services is enabled on the device, the device becomes a WAAS print server.
Note The Restart Print Server button is used when a change has been performed through the CLI and the print server must be restarted.
To enable print services from the CLI, you can use the
print-services enable
global configuration command.
Adding a Printer to the WAAS Print Server
After you enable print services, you must add one or more printers to the new WAAS print server. When you add a printer, a print queue is also added that is used by Windows print clients to spool their jobs to the WAAS print server.
To add a printer to the WAAS print server, follow these steps:
Step 1 Open the Print Services Administration GUI by doing either of the following:
-
From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services >
Servers
, click the
Edit
icon next to the name of the print server that you want to add to a cluster, and then click the
CUPS
icon in the taskbar.
-
From the WAE Device Manager GUI, choose
Configuration
from the Cisco WAE menu, click the
Print Services
tab, and then click the
Open
link.
The Print Services Administration GUI opens. (See Figure 13-3.)
Figure 13-3 Print Services Administration GUI
Step 2 Click the
Add Printer
icon. You are prompted to enter a username and password.
Step 3 Enter the username and password for the print admin account you created on this WAE device, and click
OK
.
The Add Printer window appears. (See Figure 13-4.) For more information on creating this account, see the “Creating a New Account” section.
Figure 13-4 Adding a Printer to the WAAS Print Server
Step 4 Enter the following information in the provided fields:
-
Printer name
(required)—User-defined name of the printer (maximum of 127 characters) that can contain only letters, numbers, and underscore. No spaces are allowed and the name must be unique across the system. For example, you should not use the same name for different printers. If a printer with the same name exists, the new configuration will replace the old one. If a printer cluster with the same name exists, an error appears.
-
Postscript printer
—Check box that allows you to specify if the printer is a postscript-capable printer or not (default is nonpostscript). For postscript printers, the generic.ppd is used. For nonpostscript printers, the PPD is set to raw. Postscript printer configuration supports printing test page and banner pages. This check box is visible only when adding a new printer. If you are modifying a printer, you will not see this check box.
-
Location
—User-specified location of the printer (maximum 127 characters).
-
Description
—User-specified description of the printer (maximum 127 characters).
-
Device URI
(required)—The device URI is the address of the printer, in the following form:
protocol://server:port/queue
A maximum of 1024 characters are allowed. The only allowed protocols are lpd, socket, ipp, and http. Validation check on the protocol will be performed but there is no other check on the URI string. A list of example URIs appears to help you enter it properly. You can get the information (printer port, protocol) for your specific printer from the printer manufacturer’s manual from the test page of the printer, or from the printer’s front panel.
Note Incorrectly specifying the protocol, port, or queue will lead to failure to print pages.
Step 5 Click
Submit
to save your changes.
The new print queue will be visible to clients within one minute.
Step 6 Repeat the process to add other printers to your WAAS print server.
After you add a printer, you should add it to the Windows Active Directory. To add a printer to Active Directory, follow these steps:
Step 1 On the Windows domain controller, open Active Directory Users and Computers.
Step 2 Right-click the container object folder in which you want to publish the printer, click
New
, and then click
Printer
.
The New Object-Printer dialog box appears.
Step 3 In the text box, type the path to the printer, such as \\printserver\printername, and then click
OK
.
Adding Printer Clusters
Printer clustering allows you to group several printers together. This clustering provides failover and load-balancing capabilities. You can include up to 12 printers in a printer cluster. Only printers of the same model and capabilities should be grouped together. Printers in a cluster should be geographically close to each other.
The printer cluster appears as a single print queue to Microsoft clients using the WAAS print server. The WAAS print server does not support the selection of a default printer within a cluster. When you send a print job to a printer in a printer cluster, the print job is automatically forwarded by the WAAS print server to the first available printer.
The default spooling space for all printers (including the printer cluster) is 1 GB.
To add a print cluster, follow these steps:
Step 1 Open the Print Services Administration GUI by doing either of the following:
-
From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services >
Servers
, click the
Edit
icon next to the name of the print server that you want to add to a cluster, and then click the
CUPS
icon in the taskbar.
-
From the WAE Device Manager GUI, choose
Configuration
from the Cisco WAE menu, click the
Print Services
tab, and then click the
Open
link.
The Print Services Administration GUI opens.
Step 2 Click the
Printer Cluster
tab.
If you were not previously logged into the Print Services Administration GUI, you are prompted for the user name and password of the print admin account. Enter this information and then click
OK
.
The Printer Clusters window appears. (See Figure 13-5.)
Figure 13-5 Print Services Administration Window—Printer Clusters Tab
Step 3 Click the
Add Printer Cluster
icon in the taskbar.
The Add Printer Cluster window appears. (See Figure 13-6.)
Figure 13-6 Adding New Printer Cluster
Step 4 Enter a name for the printer cluster.
The printer cluster name can contain letters and numbers, but the only special character that is supported is the underscore (no spaces allowed). The name cannot exceed 127 characters and must be unique across the system. For example, you must not use the same name for different printer clusters. If a printer cluster exists with the same name, the new configuration replaces the old one. If a printer with the same name exists, an error appears.
Step 5 Enter a name for the print cluster location (optional).
The location name cannot exceed 127 characters.
Step 6 Enter a description for the Printer cluster (optional).
This description cannot exceed 127 characters.
Step 7 Choose the printers that you want to join this new cluster by doing one of the following:
to choose all the available printers.
next to each printer you want to join the cluster.
Step 8 Click
Submit
.
The configuration is saved.
The new print queue will be visible to clients within one minute.
Setting Up the WAAS Central Manager as the Driver Repository
You can set up the WAAS Central Manager as a print driver repository that stores all the drivers you want to distribute to your WAAS print servers. Steps 1 through 4 in this section describe how to configure the WAAS Central Manager as the driver repository; steps 5 through 10 describe how to add drivers to the central repository using the Windows Add Printer Driver Wizard.
If you do not set up the WAAS Central Manager as a driver repository, you cannot centrally distribute print drivers to your WAAS print servers. In this case, you must manually install the drivers on each WAAS print server. For more information on installing drivers on an individual print server, see the “Installing Print Drivers on Individual WAAS Print Servers” section.
We recommend that you configure the WAAS Central Manager as a driver repository if you have more than one WAAS print server.
To configure the WAAS Central Manager as the print driver repository, follow these steps:
Step 1 Log into the WAAS Central Manager GUI using the print admin account that you created in the “Creating Accounts with Print Admin Privileges” section.
Step 2 From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services >
Repository
.
The Print Driver Repository Settings window appears.
Step 3 Check the
Enable Central Manager as Driver Repository
check box.
Step 4 Click
Submit
to save your changes.
Step 5 Log into a Windows client and enter the following command to add drivers to the new central repository:
net use \\
CM_netbios_name
\print$ * /USER:
username
The
CM_netbios_name
value is the NetBIOS name of the WAAS Central Manager device, and
username
is the same as the username you created in Step 1.
We recommend that you use postscript (PS) print drivers instead of PCL drivers because postscript drivers load much more quickly.
Step 6 From the Windows client, enter the following command in the Run window:
\\
CM_netbios_name
The
CM_netbios_name
value is the NetBIOS name of the WAAS Central Manager device.
The Central Manager’s driver repository appears.
Step 7 Double-click the
Printers
icon.
The Printers on Device window appears.
Step 8 From the Printers on Device window, choose
File
>
Server Properties
.
The Print Server Properties window appears.
Step 9 Choose the
Drivers
tab, and click
Add...
The Add Printer Driver Wizard opens.
Note If there is insufficient print share space to add drivers, you will see a Windows error message that indicates that a driver was unable to install because it is not compatible with Windows, or that Windows was unable to save all data due to a failure related to a computer hardware or network connection problem. If you see such a message, remove any drivers that may no longer be in use, then repeat the step to add the new drivers.
Step 10 Proceed through the wizard and add the necessary drivers to the repository on the WAAS Central Manager.
Note To avoid a possible error condition when adding drivers to the repository, do not click the Update or Replace button in the Drivers tab of the Print Server Properties window.
Step 11 After completing the wizard, verify that the drivers were successfully added to the repository by choosing
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services > Drivers
in the WAAS Central Manager GUI.
It may take up to 5 minutes for the list of drivers to appear. Verify that the drivers that you just added appear in this list. You can configure the amount of time it takes the list to be updated by adjusting the System.datafeed.pollRate field described in the “Modifying the Default System Configuration Properties” section.
Note If an error message appears that indicates a driver was unable to install due to a lack of disk space, you will need to free up disk space by first removing any unused drivers from the repository, then repeating the steps to add the driver. Because Windows 95, 98, NT, and 2000 create an extra storage directory during the driver installation process, these operating systems require approximately twice the disk space to install a print driver (requiring that you free up disk space equivalent to at least twice the size of each driver to be installed). Additionally, in Windows 95, 98, and NT operating systems, you can also free up disk space by following the steps below to remove any temporary print driver directories that Windows has not removed. (Windows 2000 and XP automatically remove these temporary directories).
To remove temporary print driver directories, do the following:
a. From the CLI on the WAAS Central Manager, change to the directory where the temporary print driver directories are located using the
cd
command. For example:
cd spool/samba/printers/W32X86
b. List the directory contents using the
ls
command.
c. Identify the temporary print driver directories by locating directories designated as: "__SKIP__xxx"
d. Use the
rmdir
command to remove the temporary print driver directories.
Installing Print Drivers on Individual WAAS Print Servers
If you do not want to set up the WAAS Central Manager as a driver repository and centrally distribute drivers, you can use the Windows Add Driver Wizard to install the necessary drivers on an individual WAAS print server.
To install printer drivers on a WAAS print server, follow these steps:
Step 1 Log in to the windows client and enter the following command:
net use \\
WAE_netbios_name
\print$ * /USER:
username
The
WAE_netbios_name
value is the NetBIOS of the WAAS print server, and
username
is the username you specified in the “Creating Accounts with Print Admin Privileges” section.
Step 2 Using Windows Network Neighborhood, find the Print Server share and click on it. Alternatively, you can open the Run window on the Windows system and enter \\
wae_netbios_name.
Step 3 View the printers configured in the WAAS Print Server by opening the Printers folder.
Step 4 Choose the printer for which you want to upload a driver, right click on it, and choose
Properties
. (See Figure 13-7.)
Figure 13-7 Sample Printer Properties Sheet
Step 5 Locate the printer driver on the CD-ROM or server.
Step 6 Click the
New Driver
button to start the Add Driver wizard.
Step 7 Click
Next
.
The Printer Driver Selection window appears. (See Figure 13-8.)
Figure 13-8 Driver Selection Window
Step 8 If the necessary driver is not displayed in the Printer Driver Selection window, click
Have Disk
and browse for the location of the printer driver on the CD-ROM or server.
Step 9 Click
OK
to finish installing the driver.
The driver has now been uploaded to the WAAS print server so that any user can download the driver to their client machine when printing.
Step 10 Initialize the driver as described in the “Initializing Print Drivers” section.
Distributing Drivers to the WAAS Print Servers
After you have set up the WAAS Central Manager as the driver repository and installed the drivers in the central repository, you can distribute the drivers to your WAAS print servers.
You can distribute drivers to WAAS print servers using one of the following methods:
After you distribute a print driver to one or more WAAS print servers, you can verify the print driver distributions as described in the “Verifying Print Driver Distribution” section.
Note If you try to distribute a print driver to a WAE that has not been enabled with print services, the driver is not distributed to the WAE.
Distributing a Single Driver to Multiple Devices or Groups
To distribute a single driver to multiple devices or groups, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services >
Drivers
. The Drivers in the Repository window appears.
Step 2 Click the
Edit
icon next to the driver that you want to distribute. The driver’s home window appears.
From this window, you can perform the following tasks:
-
Distribute the driver to print servers as described in the steps that follow.
-
Delete the driver from the repository by clicking the
Trash
icon in the taskbar.
-
View details about the driver.
Step 3 Click one of the following options in the navigation pane to distribute this driver:
-
Distribute to Print Server
—Distributes the driver to an individual WAAS print server.
-
Distribute to Device Group
—Distributes the driver to a group of WAAS print servers that have been included in the same device group.
The Print Server assignments window or the Device Group assignments window appears depending on the selected option.
Step 4 Choose the devices to which you want to distribute the WAAS print driver.
To choose the devices, use one of the following procedures:
in the taskbar to distribute the driver to all available print servers or device groups.
next to each print server or device group to distribute the driver to these specific devices. The icon changes to
when selected.
Step 5 Click
Submit
.
The icon next to the selected devices changes to
, and the driver is distributed to the specified devices.
Step 6 Verify that the print driver was successfully distributed (see the “Verifying Print Driver Distribution” section).
Distributing Multiple Drivers to a Single Device or Group
To distribute multiple drivers to a single device or group, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
My WAN > Manage Devices
(
or
Manage Device Groups
).
Step 2 Click the
Edit
icon next to the device or device group to which you want to distribute the print drivers.
The Device Dashboard window or the Modifying Device Group window appears.
Step 3 From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Acceleration > Legacy Services > Print Services
>
Download Drivers
.
The Drivers in the Repository window appears.
Step 4 Choose the drivers to distribute by doing either of the following:
in the taskbar to choose all the drivers in the list.
next to each driver to distribute. The icon changes to
when selected.
Step 5 Click
Submit
.
The icon next to the selected drivers changes to
and the selected device or device group downloads the specified drivers.
Step 6 Verify that the print drivers were successfully distributed (see the “Verifying Print Driver Distribution” section).
Verifying Print Driver Distribution
After you distribute a print driver to one or more WAAS print servers, you can use the WAAS Central Manager GUI to check for distribution errors and redistribute the drivers if necessary.
To verify that a print driver has been properly distributed to a WAAS print server, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services > Servers
.
The Print Servers table appears. The Driver Distribution Status area of this table shows the number of completed and failed driver distribution attempts. This table also shows the number of drivers that are in the process of being downloaded by the print server.
Step 2 Check the Print Server Errors column and the Failed column for an error count.
These columns show the number of errors reported on a WAAS print server. The Failed column shows the number of driver distribution errors, and the Print Server Errors column shows the number of system errors on the print server.
Step 3 If the Print Server Errors column or the Failed column contains a number other than 0 (for example, 1, 2 or 3), do the following:
a. Click the number in the column. A list of errors appears.
b. Use the error information to resolve the print server or driver distribution problem.
c. Redistribute the failed print drivers by clicking the
Retry Downloading Failed Drivers
icon, and then repeat the previous steps to check for errors.
The Retry Downloading Failed Drivers
icon appears in the taskbar on the following pages in the WAAS Central Manager GUI:
– Go to
My WAN > Manage Devices
, click the
Edit
icon next to the appropriate print server, and then choose
Configure > Acceleration > Legacy Services > Print Services > Drivers
in the navigation pane.
– Go to
My WAN > Manage Device Groups
, click the
Edit
icon for the appropriate device group, and then choose
Configure > Acceleration > Legacy Services > Print Services > Download Drivers
in the navigation pane.
Step 4 If the Print Server Errors column and the Failed column for your WAAS print servers contains a 0 (no distribution errors), do the following:
a. Click the
Edit
icon next to one of the print servers to which you distributed the print driver.
b. From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Acceleration > Legacy Services > Print Services > Drivers
.
A list of drivers installed on this device appears.
c. Verify that the Download Status column for the drivers that you just distributed shows Completed.
If the print driver does not appear in the list, wait up to 10 minutes and refresh the page. It can take up to 10 minutes for a newly distributed driver to appear in the list as Completed.
Associating a Driver with your Printer
After you distribute a driver to a WAAS print server, you need to associate the driver with the printer that you added in the “Adding a Printer to the WAAS Print Server” section.
To associate a distributed driver with a printer, follow these steps:
Step 1 Log in to a Windows client.
Step 2 Run the following command to set the print admin privilege level:
net use \\
WAE_netbios_name
\print$ * /USER:
username
The
WAE_netbios_name
is the NetBIOS name of the WAAS print server containing the printer you added in the “Adding a Printer to the WAAS Print Server” section, and
username
is the username you specified in the “Creating Accounts with Print Admin Privileges” section.
Step 3 Enter the following command in the Run window on the Windows client:
\\
wae_netbios_name
The printer share window appears.
Step 4 Double-click the printer icon to view a list of printers.
Step 5 Right-click on the printer that you added in the “Adding a Printer to the WAAS Print Server” section and choose
Properties
.
Step 6 Click the
Advanced
tab, and in the Driver drop-down list, choose the appropriate driver.
Step 7 Click
Apply
to save your changes, and then click
OK
to close the window.
Initializing Print Drivers
Before you install a print driver on a client, you need to initialize the driver so that your branch office clients can successfully install the driver and be able to print from applications such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Uninitialized drivers often do not install successfully and can cause errors when clients use them to print from Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.
Manual initialization of a driver is required because the WAAS print server cannot execute Windows driver code locally to automatically initialize the driver.
To manually initialize a print driver, follow these steps:
Step 1 From a Windows client, log in to the WAAS print server as an administrative user.
Step 2 Open the Printers and Faxes folder on the WAAS print server.
Step 3 Choose the shared printer.
Step 4 Right-click on the printer and choose
Properties
.
Step 5 From the General tab, choose
Printing Preferences
.
Step 6 Change the page orientation from Portrait to Landscape, click
Apply
, and then click
OK
.
Step 7 Reset the page orientation from Landscape back to Portrait, click
Apply
, and then click
OK
.
Changing the page orientation ensures that the setting is applied correctly.
Step 8 (Optional) Set the desired printing defaults, which are then applied to all future client driver installations.
After you complete driver initialization, follow these additional steps before continuing:
Step 1 Run the print_diff utility for each print driver, to verify the driver installation on the Samba print server and to help you understand what printer features may not be supported. For details on this utility, see the
Print_Diff Utility
section in the document
Using the Print Utilities to Troubleshoot and Fix Samba Driver Installation Problems
.
Step 2 Run the print_fix utility for each print driver to resolve any differences between the Samba and Windows print driver properties. For details on this utility, see the
Print_Fix Utility
section in the document
Using the Print Utilities to Troubleshoot and Fix Samba Driver Installation Problems
.
Step 3 Run the print_diff utility again for each print driver to verify the driver properties after they were updated by the print_fix utility.
Adding the WAAS Print Server to Your Branch Office Clients
Windows clients who will print using the WAAS print server and previously created print queues must run the Microsoft Add Printer Wizard.
To add a printer to a Windows client, follow these steps:
Step 1 From a Windows client, choose
Printers and Faxes
from the Start menu.
Step 2 Click
Add a Printer
.
The Add Printer Wizard opens.
Step 3 Click
Next
.
Step 4 Click the radio button to choose a network printer.
Step 5 Click
Next
.
The Locating Your Printer window appears. (See Figure 13-9.)
Figure 13-9 Locating Your Printer
Step 6 Use one of the following methods to choose the printer, and then click
Next
:
-
Enter the printer name.
-
Find the WAAS print server in the Active Directory (if the printer is published).
-
Browse the domain for the WAAS print server.
Note Interoperability issues can occur when Windows browses for the WAAS Print Queue in the Add Printer Wizard. If they occur, you must explicitly type the printer name.
The printer appears in your list of printers. (See Figure 13-10.)
Figure 13-10 Printer Added Successfully
Once the printer is successfully added, you can begin printing.
Managing Print Services
This section contains the following topics:
Viewing Print Server Details
Once you set up print services, you can use the WAAS Central Manager GUI to view details about print drivers and the WAAS print servers installed in your network.
Table 13-6
describes how to view print driver and print server details from the WAAS Central Manager GUI.
Table 13-6 Viewing Print Server Details from the WAAS Central Manager GUI
|
|
All drivers that reside in the repository on the WAAS Central Manager
|
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services
>
Drivers
|
Detailed information about a driver
|
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services
>
Drivers
, and click on the driver.
|
Drivers installed on a specific WAAS print server
|
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services
>
Servers
, and follow these steps:
1. Choose the WAAS print server.
2. Click the
Driver
tab.
A list of all the drivers distributed to this WAAS print server appears. For information on how to distribute drivers, see the “Distributing Drivers to the WAAS Print Servers” section.
|
Printers associated with a WAAS print server
|
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services >
Servers
, and follow these steps:
1. Choose the WAAS print server.
2. Click the
Printer
tab (visible by default).
Or, go to
My WAN > Manage Devices
, and follow these steps:
1. Choose the WAAS print server for which you want to view the print queue.
2. From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Acceleration > Legacy Services > Print Services
>
Printers
.
|
A list of WAAS print servers in your network
|
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services >
Servers
|
A list of WAAS print servers in a specific device group
|
My WAN > Manage Device Groups
, then follow these steps:
1. Click the
Edit
icon next to the device group that contains the print servers you want to view.
2. From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Acceleration > Legacy Services > Print Services > Print Servers
.
A list of print servers associated with the selected device group appears.
|
Driver distribution errors
|
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services
>
Servers
, and then click on the number in the Failed column.
|
Print server errors
|
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services > Servers
, and then click on the number in the Print Server Errors column.
|
The status of your WAAS print server
|
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services > Servers
, and then follow these steps:
1. View the Time Stamp column, and ensure that the time is not more than 5 minutes old. Each WAAS print server sends a status report to the WAAS Central Manager on a regular interval specified by the System.monitoring.collectRate field (described in the “Modifying the Default System Configuration Properties” section). If a WAAS print server fails to send this report on time, the server is probably down.
2. If a WAAS print server has not sent a status report in the last 5 minutes, do the following:
a. Go to
Admin > Logs > System Messages
.
b. Search the message log for the reason the WAAS print server is not functioning correctly. You can use the Node Name column to quickly locate information for a specific WAAS print server.
Note CUPS log files are rotated when the log file reaches the maximum size of 1MB.
|
Configuring Aggregate Settings
Aggregate settings allow you to configure a WAAS print server to automatically download drivers that are distributed to a device group to which it is a member. For example, if a WAAS print server belongs to device group DG1 and is configured with aggregate settings enabled, the print server will automatically download any driver that you distribute to the DG1 device group. However, if the same print server is configured with aggregate settings disabled, the print server will not download drivers that you distribute to the DG1 device group.
The WAAS Central Manager does not redistribute drivers that already exist on a WAE device. For example, if a WAAS print server belongs to two device groups (DG1 and DG2) and the aggregate setting is enabled, the print server only downloads one instance of the driver in the event it is distributed to both device groups.
When you add a WAAS print server to a device group, the aggregate settings for the print server are enabled and the drivers belonging to the device group are automatically distributed to the print server. When you remove a print server from a device group when aggregate settings are enabled, all the drivers assigned to the device group are removed from the print server if the drivers are not being used by any printer.
To configure aggregate settings on a WAAS print server, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
My WAN > Manage Devices
.
The Devices window appears.
Step 2 Click the
Edit
icon next to the WAAS print server for which you want to configure aggregate settings.
The Device Dashboard window appears.
Step 3 From the navigation pane, choose
Configure > Acceleration > Legacy Services > Print Services
>
Drivers
.
A list of drivers installed on the WAAS print server appears.
Step 4 Click the
Yes
radio button at the top of the list to enable aggregate settings, or click
No
to disable aggregate settings.
A dialog box asks if you want to continue.
Step 5 Click
OK
.
If you enabled aggregate settings, the WAAS print server begins downloading all the drivers that have been distributed to its device group.
Using the Print Services Administration GUI
The Print Services Administration GUI allows you to perform a variety of tasks for a specific WAAS print server. You can open the Print Services Administration GUI from the WAAS Central Manager GUI or from the WAE Device Manager GUI.
Note After accessing the Print Services Administration GUI, you are prompted for the user name and password of the print admin account when you perform any task such as adding a printer. For information on creating a print admin account on a WAE device, see the “Creating a New Account” section.
This section contains the following topics:
Opening the Print Services Administration GUI
You can open the Print Services Administration GUI from either the WAE Device Manager GUI or from the WAAS Central Manager GUI.
To open the Print Services Administration GUI from the WAE Device Manager GUI, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the WAE Device Manager GUI, choose
Cisco WAE > Configuration
.
Step 2 Click the Print Services tab, and click the
Open
link. The Print Services Administration GUI opens.
To open the Print Services Administration GUI from the WAAS Central Manager GUI, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the WAAS Central Manager GUI navigation pane, choose
Configure > Legacy Services > Print Services > Servers
.
A list of the WAAS print servers installed in your network appears.
Step 2 Click the
Edit
icon next to the WAAS print server that you want to manage.
Step 3 Click the
CUPS
icon in the tool bar.
The Print Services Administration GUI appears.
Modifying the Printer Configuration
To modify the configuration of a an existing printer, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the Printers tab in the Print Services Administration GUI, choose the printer to modify.
The Modifying Printer window appears. (See Figure 13-11.)
Figure 13-11 Modifying Printer Configuration
Use this window to modify the location, description, and device URI settings. The name field cannot be modified. You can also perform the following tasks by clicking the corresponding icons:
-
Print a test page (for Postscript printer only)—Sends a test page to the printer.
-
Configure printer (for Postscript printer only)—Displays the Configure Printer window that can be used to set starting and ending banner page options. For more information, see the “Enabling Print Banners” section.
-
Stop/Start the printer—Allows you to stop and start the printer. A warning appears to ask for user confirmation before stopping the printer.
-
Accept/Reject Jobs—Allows you to determine if any job can be sent to this printer.
-
Show Completed Jobs—Displays the Job Listing Page with only completed jobs for this printer. For more information, see the “Viewing Print Jobs” section.
-
Show Active Jobs—Displays the Job Listing Page with only active jobs for this printer. For more information, see the “Viewing Print Jobs” section.
-
Delete this printer configuration—Allows you to delete this printer. If the printer belongs to a printer cluster, deleting the printer will remove that printer from the cluster. If the printer is the only printer in a cluster, the cluster itself is removed.
Step 2 Modify any of the following configuration settings:
-
Location—User-specified location of the printer (maximum 127 characters).
-
Description—User-specified description of the printer (maximum 127 characters).
-
Device URI (required)—The device URI is the address of the printer, in the form:
protocol://server:port/queue
A maximum of 1024 characters are allowed. The only allowed protocols are lpd, socket, ipp, and http. Validation check on the protocol will be performed but there is no other check on the URI string. A list of example URIs appears to help you enter it properly. You can obtain the information (printer port, protocol) for your specific printer from the printer manufacturer’s manual, from the test page of the printer, or from the printer’s front panel.
Note You can configure these fields only if the printer is running. If the printer is stopped or is rejecting jobs, the fields are read-only and a message appears indicating the printer status.
Step 3 Click
Submit
to save your changes.
The print queue change will be visible to clients within 1 minute.
Enabling Print Banners
To enable a starting or ending banner for each print job, follow these steps:
Step 1 From the Printers tab in the Print Services Administration GUI, choose the printer to modify.
The Modifying Printer window appears. (See Figure 13-11.)
Step 2 Click the
Configure
button (
) in the tool bar.
The Configuring Printer window appears. (See Figure 13-12.)
Figure 13-12 Configuring the Starting and Ending Print Banners
Step 3 Check the check box next to the banner option that you want to enable:
-
Starting Banner
—Enables printing of a starting banner for each job.
-
Ending Banner
—Enables printing of an ending banner for each job.
The starting and ending banners print the same information. These options just allow you to choose the location of the banner on the page.
Step 4 Click
Submit
.
Note If you incorrectly specify a nonpostscript printer as a postscript printer and enable the banner page, the printer will print something similar to “%!PS-Adobe-3.0. %% …” then numerous blank pages. This message is an indication that the printer setup is incorrect. To print valid test page and banner pages, you must specify the printer postscript capability correctly.
Viewing Print Jobs
Use the Jobs tab in the Print Services Administration GUI to view a list of completed and active jobs.
The pages show the following job details:
-
ID —Generated by concatenating the printer name with a sequence number.
-
Name—Name of the job you selected to print.
-
Size—Size of the job.
-
Status—Reported status of the job; only available in Active Job Listing Page.
-
Completion Time—Reported completion time of the job; only available in Completed Job Listing window.
The Completed Job Listing window (see Figure 13-13) only shows jobs that are still in the spool area (/local/local1/spool/cups). The spool area retains the last 500 completed jobs and has a 1-GB size limitation. Once the completed job limit is reached, the oldest job is removed to make room for the latest completed job. When a job is removed from the spool area, it is no longer listed in the Completed Job Listing window.
Figure 13-13 Completed Job Listing Window
In the Active Job Listing window (see Figure 13-14), you can also perform the following tasks by clicking the corresponding icons next to the job:
-
Stop Job—Stops the selected job.
-
Delete Job—Deletes the selected job.
The Active Job Listing window shows all the print jobs that are not completed or cancelled.
Figure 13-14 Active Job Listing Window—Job Can Be Stopped or Deleted
Viewing the Print Server Page Log
The WAAS print server page log is stored in /local/local1/logs/cups_access_log. The cups_access_log file lists each page that is sent to a printer. Each line contains the following information:
printer user job-id date-time page-number num-copies job-billing hostname
Here is an example of a log entry:
DeskJet root 2 [20/May/2008:19:21:05 +0000] 1 0 acme-123 localhost
The field descriptions are as follows:
-
The
printer
field contains the name of the printer that printed the page. If you send a job to a printer class, this field will contain the name of the printer that was assigned the job.
-
The
user
field contains the name of the user (the IPP requesting-user-name attribute) that submitted this file for printing.
-
The
job-id
field contains the job number of the page being printed. Job numbers are reset to 1 whenever the CUPS server is started, so do not depend on this number being unique.
-
The
date-time
field contains the date and time when the page started printing. The format of this field is identical to the
date-time
field in the access_log file.
-
The
page-number
and
num-pages
fields contain the page number and number of copies being printed of that page. For printers that cannot produce copies on their own, the
num-pages
field will always be 1.
-
The
job-billing
field contains a copy of the job-billing attribute provided with the IPP create-job or print-job requests or "-" if none was provided.
-
The
hostname
field contains the name of the host (the IPP job-originating-host-name attribute) that originated the print job.