Set up Pharos as an LPR network printer on Ubuntu

Usernames must match Like all methods that involve setting up Pharos as an LPR printer, these instructions require that your local username match your Kerberos username. For users who do not want to change their username and are using Debian/Ubuntu, please see [istcontrib:Install the Pharos printing client on Ubuntu].

LPR appears to now be considered "legacy" as of Ubuntu GNOME 13.04, so these instructions may not work for newer versions of Ubuntu.

The following steps will guide you to set up Pharos printing on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, although the instructions should readily translate to other distributions on Linux.

On this page:

Black and white printing

1. Select Printers from the System Settings menu and click the Add button in the new window.
   
2. Select Enter URL from the list and enter the following device URL:

   lpd://mitprint.mit.edu/bw
   

   

3. Click on the Forward button. The operating system will attempt to find the correct driver.
4. In the new window, click on the Select printer from database radio button under Choose Driver, then scroll down and select HP. Then click the Forward button.
   
5. You will be prompted to select a model. Select LaserJet 9050. Then, on the right hand side of the window, choose HP LaserJet 9050 hpjis pcl3.
   
6. You will then be prompted to name the printer and add a description. You can pick any name you want, but we recommend mitprint.
   

If the hpjis protocol is not working for you, sometimes trying "HP LaserJet 9050 pcl3, hpcups" can work better for some users.

Color printing

1. Select Printers from the System Settings menu and click the Add button in the new window.
   
2. Select Enter URL from the list and enter the following device URL:

   lpd://mitprint.mit.edu/color
   

   

3. Click on the Forward button. The operating system will attempt to find the correct driver.
4. In the new window, click on the Select printer from database radio button under Choose Driver, then scroll down and select HP. Then click the Forward button.
   
5. You will be prompted to select a model. Select Color LaserJet cp3525dn. Then, on the right hand side of the window, choose HP Color LaserJet 9050 hpijs pcl3.
   
6. You will then be prompted to name the printer and add a description. You can pick any name you want, but we recommend mitprint-color.
   

See also

• Pharos Printing Landing Page

Advanced Users

CUPS does support passing a username to LPD printers with URIs of the format lpd://joeuser@mitprint.mit.edu/bw. This functionality was broken on Ubuntu 11.04 through Ubuntu 11.10. If you wish to set up a printer using this method, you may, but we are unable to provide any support for this method. Additionally, on any versions of Ubuntu later than 10.04, all graphical tools (include the CUPS web interface) will strip the user component from the URI, though it will be present in CUPS' printers.conf file.

On recent versions of GNOME, the function to add LPD printers with the GUI has been deprecated. You may bring back the legacy printer settings panel by installing the package system-config-printer-gnome:

sudo apt-get install system-config-printer-gnome

and start the legacy printer settings panel with the command

system-config-printer

Creating A New User Account

In order for this to work, the local user account needs to be exactly the same as the kerberos username. In the event that it is not (which is common) then you will need to rename the user using usermod.

As root, change the username:

# usermod -l newname oldname

You can also change your home directory to match the new username, like so:

# usermod -d /my/new/home -m username

Though please note that the -m option will create a new directory and migrate your data there. If needed, you can also create a simlink to catch anything attempting to use the old path:

# ln -s /my/new/home/ /my/old/home

This guide does not attempt to handle more advanced cases, e.g. if your homedir is encrypted.