Configuring secondary print servers and locally attached printers

This section covers the setup of a secondary print server in “Quick Start” format. For a detailed explanation of the underlying technology and what’s happening behind the scenes see the subsequent sections.

A secondary print server is a system that directly hosts a printer. In many situations it can be a dedicated server, however, a secondary server can also be a desktop system hosting a directly attached USB printer. If this printer is to be controlled and tracked by PaperCut NG/MF, a small monitoring component needs to be installed. The monitoring component intercepts the local printing and reports this use back to the primary Application Server. A secondary server can be either :

1. A server style system hosting many printers.
2. A desktop style system hosting printer(s) also shared to other network users.
3. A desktop style system with the printer used only for local users (not shared).

The monitoring service is also referred to as a Print Provider as its task is to provide information back to the main Application Server.

The process of setting up a secondary print server, depends on the operating system. Read the section appropriate to the required operating system.

If you have a networked environment but do not have a print server, you can configure your computers to print directly to a printer. For more information, see Configuring Direct Printing.

What’s in this section?

• Configure a Windows secondary print server
• Configure a Macintosh secondary print server
• Configure a Linux or Novell iPrint secondary print server
• Where to find the secondary server software
• Print monitoring architecture
• Multiple print servers
• Automating secondary server deployment on Windows
• Troubleshooting secondary servers