[SOLVED] yet another samba print server problem

williamkray · 2010-12-03 03:55:31

alright, i've tried, i really have. i've been working on this for two days, and i just can't figure this out. i'm still a newbie with arch, but i've learned from my last two posts (unneccessary and quickly resolved with just a little more research), i've read everything i can think of about this, tried about a thousand different configurations of my smb.conf file, and it still isn't working.

i have a printer hooked up to my arch64 box. i installed samba, and i am trying to get it to act as a print server on my network. but when i use my wife's computer (a mac) and try to locate the printer, it doesn't show up. with my current smb.conf, while using the mac (snow leopard) i try to add the printer using samba, i can see the workgroup "mygroup" and the server "arch". it then asks for a username and password, i instead select the "guest" option, but i don't see any printers.

i'm using an epson CX8400 printer, arch x86_64 on my server, samba 3.5.6, and the following smb.conf: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9392454/smb.conf
i have a user smbguest, and have added smbguest to the samba server with the command

smbpasswd -a smbguest

i've tried to mess with just about every configuration i can think of, and if i vary too much from the current .conf, the mac won't even see the samba server. i'm still not entirely sure what settings are preventing that, though. i'm so lost, and my eyes hurt from staring at the computer screen for so long. i also think my wife is mad at me. i digress.

i appreciate any help thrown my way, i will try to answer any questions posed as best i can. please tell me any commands to run to discover the information one might need to diagnose this.

thank you thank you thank you.

Last edited by williamkray (2010-12-04 01:53:55)

stryder · 2010-12-03 08:29:18

Can't help you with samba but if it is only OSX you are connecting to (ie no windows) then you should use CUPS. And follow the tip in the following website: http://www.noulakaz.net/weblog/2009/09/ … ps-server/

dschrute · 2010-12-03 14:10:42

First I would share a directory and try connecting to that just to confirm Samba is working in general, then move on to printing. In my experience, a majority of Samba issues are related to either name resolution or permissions at the file system level. These can be easier to work through without adding the extra layer of CUPs/printing to deal with.

Once the basics are OK I would also check :

Does the printer work from the host ? I'd assume it does but you didn't specifically say that.

Does the smbguest account exist on your Linux box ? You've added it to Samba, but that isn't necessary if it's going to be used for guest access. The idea of a guest account is that you don't need to manage it at the Samba level, but it still needs to be a valid OS account on the Samba server. It doesn't need a valid shell or even password, but should be in /etc/passwd but doesn't need to be in your smbpasswd file. When connecting to services with it you should never need a password.

Check the permissions on you /var/spool/samba directory. The user account that is printing needs at least RW and possibly X on that folder.

Finally like stryder says, Samba is not required to share a printer with MacOS ( or Windows ). Both Macs and Windows can print via lpd to a CUPs server and this may be easier to manage.

williamkray · 2010-12-03 19:26:18

Thank you for your responses! Dwight, I will try sharing folders first and see if I can troubleshoot from there. As far as I can tell I've got all my ducks in a row with regard to the factors you've mentioned.

Stryder, I might just end up doing it through cups just to get it working, thank you for that link! I would eventually like to get samba working for it's more universal capabilities, but we'll see how that goes.

Thanks again, I will update as my sambadventure continues...

stryder · 2010-12-04 01:17:23

Nothing to stop you from using both, I think. CUPS works seamlessly with osx (apple owns cups, IIANM.)

williamkray · 2010-12-04 02:00:17

hooray!!! thanks to both of you for helping me with this, i seem to have found my problem:

my samba server would not allow connection to shared files (thanks dwight for the suggestion!) as a guest, so i knew something was wrong there. turns out i still had

security = user

instead of

security = share

i thought that since i had set up a guest user account, i should still keep security set to user... but switching it to share made not only my folders available, but the printer visible on the mac!!!

thanks again gang, you kept me sane on this one. i knew it still had to be a simple thing i was missing, i'm still pretty new at this (former ubuntu/linux mint user).

off topic: the reason that i switched from linux mint to arch was because, as great a distro as it is for beginners, as soon as i started trying to change things around too much, it all started falling apart... it's easier to use for a beginner, but advanced configurations become complicated and bloated. thank you arch, for making these things easier to do by forcing me to learn how to do it! and thank you arch community for being both responsive and helpful in aiding my learning process. i can't get over how awesome my experience on these forums has been so far.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-12-03 03:55:31

[SOLVED] yet another samba print server problem

#2 2010-12-03 08:29:18

Re: [SOLVED] yet another samba print server problem

#3 2010-12-03 14:10:42

Re: [SOLVED] yet another samba print server problem

#4 2010-12-03 19:26:18

Re: [SOLVED] yet another samba print server problem

#5 2010-12-04 01:17:23

Re: [SOLVED] yet another samba print server problem

#6 2010-12-04 02:00:17

Re: [SOLVED] yet another samba print server problem

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