Airprint To Old Printer Using CentOS Server

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Hi folks,

I’ve found a number of articles on setting up a Linux / CUPS / Avahi server to allow airprinting, but they all seem to be quite old.

Two questions:

1) Does anyone have a link for a more recent article, hopefully specifically for CentOS7.

2) I’m on a structured, VLAN network. Will I have to put a WIFI card into my CentOS server to give it a presence on the WIFI before this will work?

Gary

4 thoughts on - Airprint To Old Printer Using CentOS Server

  • I’ve not seen specific instructions for CentOS 7, but when I last did this the actual AirPrint script was simple enough that I doubt you’d have trouble. Main thing is making use that you can print directly from your CentOS machine. Depends how the network is set up. I had my AirPrint server on a different VLAN to the wifi, and you need the following for that to work:
    An Avahi bridge so the announcements from AirPrint are also announced on the WiFi Firewall rules to allow the CUPS port through from the WiFi to your server

    I found this was pretty easy to configure, but I was able to completely control the network (putting VMs on any VLAN; opening firewalls etc.). It might be easier to use wifi in your setup.

  • Hi Gary

    I got this working in a previous role a while ago:
    http://thirdlineit.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/active-directory-authenticated-airprint.html
    (ignore the authentication aspects). I also managed to do it recently on my home network using Ubuntu, so the principle still works. Summary:

    1. Install CUPS
    2. Enable IPP for the printer queues
    3. To make the printers visible across subnets/VLANs/broadcast domains you can use DNS-SD instead of avahi. Basically you just need to create special DNS records for each printer queue and this avoids having to forward avahi requests. Here is one page that describes the process: http://www.craig-tolley.co.uk/mini-projects/configuring-airprint-using-dns/
    …but there are other guides out there.

    Hope this helps!
    Richard

  • I use the DNS-SD approach as well and it works quite well. Provided that you run your own DNS, or are friendly with whoever does. (The records have to go in a zone that is in your clients’ search domain.) The advantage here is it works across networks/vlans and doesn’t require you to have any administrative control over the devices.

    You could also create a .mobileconfig profile that specifies the location of the queues and install that on the iPads. You need to be using an MDM to push it out to your clients, or have a small enough number of devices that you can install the profile manually. (Or post the profile on a web server somewhere and tell your users to go there and install it themselves.)

    David